;!  j   iiuini 

THE  RISE  OF  MOD 
RELIGIOUS  IDEAS 


Mc  GIF  PERT 


i 


THE  RISE  OF  MODERN 
RELIGIOUS  IDEAS 


WORKS  ON  MODERN  THEOLOGY 

GENERAL  EDITOR 

JAMES  M.  WHITON,  Ph.D. 


THE  RISE  OF  MODERN  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS 

BV 

ARTHUR  C.  McGIFFERT,  Ph.D.,  D.D. 

PKOFESSOR  OF  CHURCH  HISTORY  IN  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SElflNARY 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   RELIGION  OF 
THE  SPIRIT 

BY 

FRANK  C.  PORTER,  Ph.D.,  D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OP  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  YALE  CKIVERSItY 

Other  volumes  are  m  preparatitHi 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
M  FIFTH  AVENUE.  NEW  YORK 


THE  RISE  OF  MODERN 
RELIGIOUS  IDEAS 


BY 

ARTHUR  CUSHMAN  McGIFFERT 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1915 


BTc^7 


/ 


I 


^-^'/z  '/^' 


ComjGsx,  igzs 

bt  the  macmillan  company 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  February,  igts 
Reprinted    December,    1915. 


TO 

FRANCIS  BROWN 

IN  GRATEFUL  RECOGNITION  OF 

A  FELLOWSHIP  OF  MORE  THAN  A  SCORE  OF  YEARS 


ftofi'yn*^ 


EDITORIAL    NOTE 

The  volumes  of  this  series  are  severally  designed  to 
embody  the  results  of  such  theological  research,  re- 
construction, and  readjustment  as  have  thus  far  taken 
place,  especially  during  the  last  half -century. 

That  the  work  already  done  in  this  Kne  leaves  no 
more  of  it  to  be  expected  and  desired  is  as  foreign  to 
the  thought  of  the  present  collaborators  as  confidence 
in  a  perfected  work  was  native  in  the  thought  of  the 
old  divines. 

That  the  systematic  theology  framed  by  these  has 
hopelessly  broken  down  in  the  collapse  of  the  ancient 
conceptions  of  God,  of  Nature,  of  the  Bible,  and  of 
man,  which  molded  and  sustained  it,  is  now  frankly 
confessed  in  the  chief  seats  of  theological  instruction. 
Much  of  it  still  survives.  Though  in  modern  time,  it 
is  not  of  it,  and  is  gradually  yielding  to  the  transform- 
ing influences  of  modern  knowledge. 

The  modern  theologian  believes  and  intends  to  re- 
member with  Paul,  that  "we  know  in  part,  and  we 
prophesy  in  part."  Certain  of  the  things  that  cannot 
be  shaken,  that  remain  our  heritage  forever,  he  is  as 
mindful  of  successors,  whom  ever  growing  knowledge 
will  enable  to  improve  upon  his  work,  as  he  is  of  pred- 
ecessors, whose  work  he  has  similarly  been  enabled 
to  improve  upon. 

vii 


Vin  EDITORIAL   NOTE 

Thus  recognizing  his  limitations  he  is  content  to 
contribute  in  these  volumes  what  he  can  from  the  at- 
tainments of  the  present  toward  the  advance  of  future 
generations  in  knowledge  of  the  works  and  ways  of 
the  Infinite  Spirit,  in  whom  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being.  J.  M.  W. 


PREFACE 

This  volume  is  based  upon  the  Earl  Lectures,  given 
before  the  Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  at  Berkeley, 
California,  in  September,  191 2. 

A  number  of  years  ago,  in  response  to  the  request 
of  Doctor  James  M.  Whiton,  I  promised  to  write  a 
book  on  the  "Antecedents  of  Modem  Theology,"  as 
one  of  a  series  dealing  with  modern  religious  thought. 
Circumstances  delayed  its  preparation,  and,  when  the 
invitation  was  received  to  give  the  Earl  Lectures,  it 
seemed  wise  to  take  a  kindred  theme  as  the  subject 
of  the  course.  With  the  gracious  approval,  both  of 
the  seminary  authorities  and  of  the  editor  of  the 
series,  the  present  volume,  which  contains  the  sub- 
stance of  the  lectures,  but  in  a  different  form  and 
considerably  enlarged,  appears  as  the  first  of  the 
series  on  modern  religious  thought. 

The  limits  imposed  by  the  nature  of  the  series,  while 
permitting  a  more  extended  discussion  than  was  pos- 
sible in  a  course  of  six  lectures,  yet  forbade  aught  but 
a  summary  treatment  of  a  few  representative  topics, 
and  even  these,  I  am  well  aware,  are  presented  in  an 
all  too  fragmentary  and  incomplete  fashion.  But,  in 
spite  of  its  limitations,  it  is  hoped  that  the  book  may 
serve  its  purpose,  not  as  a  history  of  modern  religious 

ix 


X  PREFACE 

thought,  which  it  does  not  pretend  to  be,  but  as  an 
account  of  the  influences  which  have  promoted,  and 
of  the  circumstances  which  have  attended,  the  rise  of 
some  of  the  leading  religious  ideas  of  the  present  day, 
in  so  far  as  they  differ  from  the  ideas  of  other  days, 
and  hence  may  fairly  be  called  modern.  If  as  such 
it  shall  in  any  degree  contribute  to  an  imderstanding 
of  the  existing  situation,  its  aim  will  have  been 
achieved. 

Thanks  are  due  to  my  colleagues.  Professor  George 
A.  Coe  and  Professor  Thomas  C.  Hall,  for  their  kind- 
ness in  reading  the  proof  of  certain  chapters  and  aid- 
ing me  with  valuable  suggestions. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Editorial  Note vii 

Preface ix 


BOOK  I 
DISINTEGRATION 

CHAPTER 

L    Pietism    . •       .  5 

II.    The  Enlightenment ii 

III.  Natural  Science 24 

IV.  The  Critical  Philosophy 45 

BOOK  II 
RECONSTRUCTION 

V.    The  Emancipation  of  Religion 61 

VI.    The  Rebirth  of  Speculation 81 

VII.    The  Rehabilitation  of  Faith 104 

VIII.    Agnosticism 144 

IX.    Evolution 166 

X.    Divine   Immanence 187 

XL    Ethical  Theism 222 

XII.    The  Character  of  God 240 

XIII.  The  Social  Emphasis  . 254 

XIV.  Religious  Authority 279 

Index 3" 


THE  RISE  OF  MODERN 
RELIGIOUS  IDEAS 


THE  RISE  OF  MOUF.RN 

RELIGIOUS  ide:as' 

BOOK  I 

DISINTEGRATION 

The  Protestant  Reformation  resulted  in  course 
of  time  in  the  formation  of  systems  of  theology  as 
elaborate  and  scholastic  as  the  Roman  Catholic. 
While  the  authority  of  Pope  and  Council  was  re- 
jected, the  new  systems  were,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, as  binding  on  the  Christian  conscience  as  the 
old  had  been.  The  Bible,  not  the  Church,  was  now 
theoretically  supreme,  but  the  Bible  was  supposed  to 
have  found  its  adequate  and  final  interpretation  in 
the  symbolical  books  of  the  Reformation,  and  of  these 
the  theologians  were  the  recognized  exponents.  Sav- 
ing faith,  it  was  generally  believed,  involved  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  whole  Christian  revelation,  and  as 
faith  was  made  the  only  condition  of  salvation,  ortho- 
doxy acquired  an  even  more  prominent  place  in 
Protestantism  than  in  Catholicism,  where  good  works 
were  regarded  as  equally  important. 

In  the  late  sixteenth  century,  and  throughout  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the   seventeenth,   scholastic  ortho- 


2  THE   RISE    OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

doxy- -was  in  jcantrol  in  most  parts  of  the  Protestant 
world- '-'The  great  aim  of  the  Reformation,  it  was 
a^reed^-jMtd.beeji.the  purification  of  doctrine,  and  un- 
less'its  doct'riner  were  pure,  no  church  could  claim  to 
be  a  true  church  of  Christ.  Nervous  concern  for  their 
own  soundness  in  the  faith  was  for  long  a  leading 
characteristic  of  most  Protestant  communions.  In- 
tolerance was  even  more  general  and  more  bitter 
than  in  Roman  Catholicism,  for  there  was  not  the 
same  consciousness  of  strength  in  the  divided  churches 
of  the  Reformation  as  in  the  one  great  body  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Intellectual  agreement,  covering  often 
the  smallest  minutiae  of  doctrine,  was  made  the  prin- 
cipal, often  the  sole,  ground  of  fellowship.  New  sects 
arose  upon  the  basis  of  disparate  interpretations  of 
all  sorts  of  matters,  and  the  salvation  of  those  of 
other  views  was  almost  everywhere  denied. 

But  the  various  Protestant  systems,  with  all  their 
differences  in  detail,  were  identical  in  their  main  fesv- 
tures,  for  they  were  the  fruit  of  one  great  movement 
and  were  conscious  of  a  common  opposition  to  Roman 
Catholicism.  The  salient  fact  in  the  situation  was 
not  the  existence  of  numerous  and  alien  Protestant 
theologies,  but  of  a  common  Protestant  theology,  es- 
sentially one  in  spite  of  all  differences  in  detail  and 
in  spite  of  all  disagreements  between  the  sects.  The 
salient  fact  in  the  situation,  indeed,  was  not  merely  the 
oneness  of  Protestant  theology,  but  the  oneness  of 
Christian  theology,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  for 
in  most  of  their  essential  features  Protestantism  and 
Roman  Catholicism  were  still  identical. 


DISINTEGRATION  3 

Though  the  Reformers  broke  with  the  old  church 
and  substituted  a  new  doctrine  of  the  nature  and 
means  of  salvation  and  the  place  of  the  church  for 
the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine,  they  retained  the  greater 
part  of  the  traditional  theology.  The  historic  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity — three  persons  in  one  substance;  the 
creation  of  the  world  out  of  nothing  in  six  days  by  the 
power  of  the  Almighty;  the  original  perfection  of 
Adam  and  his  subsequent  fall,  entailing  upon  all  his 
descendants  the  burden  of  sin  and  making  them  sub- 
ject not  merely  to  physical  death  but  also  to  punish- 
ment in  a  future  life  beyond  the  grave;  the  existence 
of  hell  as  a  place  of  everlasting  torment  and  heaven 
as  a  place  of  everlasting  bliss;  the  need  of  a  super- 
natural redemption  to  free  men  from  the  eternal 
consequences  of  their  sin,  both  original  and  actual; 
the  provision  of  this  redemption  by  Jesus  Christ  who 
was  both  God  and  man — two  natures  in  one  person — 
and  who  was  born  of  a  virgin,  suffered,  and  died  that 
the  wrath  of  God  might  be  appeased  and  men  be 
saved,  and  who  rose  again  from  the  dead ;  the  require- 
ment of  repentance  and  faith  in  Christ  in  order  to  at- 
tain salvation;  the  necessity  of  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion of  God's  will  and  truth  that  the  way  of  life  might 
be  known,  and  of  divine  help  that  being  known  it 
could  be  followed;  the  divine  inspiration  and  author- 
ity of  the  Bible;  the  supernatural  origin,  preservation, 
and  guidance  of  the  Church;  the  appointment  of  the 
sacraments  as  means  of  divine  grace — all  this  and 
more  was  believed  both  by  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
and  it  is  this  common  body  of  theology  that  consti- 


4  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

tutes  the  main  substance  of  historic  orthodoxy  and 
is  to  be  contrasted  with  the  modern  religious  ideas 
whose  rise  I  am  to  trace  in  this  volume.  Everywhere 
dominant  within  the  principal  Protestant  communions 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  this  old  orthodoxy  gradu- 
ally suffered  disintegration,  and  is  to-day  widely,  and 
in  greater  or  less  part,  discredited  within  those  very 
communions.  The  forces  making  for  its  disintegra- 
tion were  many  and  various.  The  most  important  of 
them  demand  brief  consideration. 


CHAPTER   I 

PIETISM 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  Philip 
Jacob  Spener,  a  pastor  in  Frankfort  on  the  Main,  dis- 
tressed by  the  prevailing  ir religion  of  his  day,  began 
a  practical  religious  work  out  of  which  grew  the  great 
movement  known  as  German  pietism.  The  principles 
upon  which  Spener  built  were  not  new — 'they  had 
long  existed,  both  in  Lutheran  and  Reformed  Protes- 
tantism— ^but  he  gave  them  a  currency  which  they  had 
not  before  enjoyed,  and  they  became  ultimately  all- 
controlling  in  the  religious  life  of  Germany.  In  the 
over-emphasis  of  theology  and  in  the  widespread 
identification  of  saving  faith  with  orthodoxy,  Spener 
saw  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  decline  in  re- 
ligion and  morality.  True  piety  had  been  too  largely 
lost  sight  of,  and  the  practical  duties  of  the  Christian 
life.  There  was  needed  above  all  a  revival  of  personal 
religion  in  the  form  of  deeper  spirituality  and  greater 
devotion.  Spener  had  no  quarrel  with  Protestant 
orthodoxy,  and  attacked  none  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
traditional  Lutheran  system,  but  his  attitude,  never- 
theless, was  wholly  different  from  that  of  his  theologi- 
cal contemporaries.  To  them  purity  in  the  faith  meant 
everything — the   guarding   of   the   deposit   of   truth 

5 


O  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

handed  down  by  the  Apostles  and  after  centuries  of 
corruption  recovered  and  reformulated  in  the  Confes- 
sions of  the  Reformation.  To  him  the  religious  life 
of  the  individual  Christian  seemed  most  important — 
his  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  his  union  with 
Christ,  his  sanctification  through  the  indwelling  Di- 
vine. 

j  The  movement  was  a  protest  of  individualism 
(against  institutionalism  and  in  this  respect  one  in 
spirit  with  the  Reformation  itself.  Conformity  to  an 
external  standard,  submission  to  an  external  author- 
ity, unquestioning  acceptance  of  a  given  system  of 
Itruth,  attendance  upon  public  religious  services,  and 
[participation  in  established  rites — all  this  was  not 
\enough.  There  must  be  the  personal  experience  of 
conversion  and  the  personal  devotion  of  the  heart  and 
life  to  Christ.  Religion,  according  to  Spener,  is  an  in- 
dividual, not  merely  a  corporate,  matter,  and  in  some 
degree  at  least  every  true  Christian  must  have  an  in- 
dependent religious  life  of  his  own,  a  life  of  direct 
communion  with  Christ,  not  dependent  upon  the 
ministrations  of  a  priest  or  the  mediation  of  the 
Church. 

The  movement  was  also  an  assertion  of  the  religious 
rights  and  responsibilities  of  the  laity.  A  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  Spener' s  was  the  universal  priesthood 
of  believers,  involving  the  duty  of  mutual  instruc- 
tion, inspiration,  and  reproof.  This  principle  he  put 
into  practical  operation  by  starting  meetings  among 
the  laity  for  the  devotional  study  of  the  Bible  and  for 
prayer  and  spiritual  edification.    These  meetings  mul- 


PIETISM  7 

tiplied  rapidly  and  proved  a  most  effective  means  for 
the  reformation  of  the  religious  life  and  for  the  spread 
of  the  pietistic  movement.     Through  them  the  laity 
were  trained  in   self-expression,  and  their  sense  of 
religious  responsibility  was  vastly  enhanced.    Without 
doubt  they  did  much  to  undermine  the  dominance  of 
theologians  and  the  control  of  speculative  theology 
in  the  churches  of  Germany.    In  all  of  them  the  study 
of  the  Bible,  not  for  doctrinal,  but  for  devotional  pur-j 
poses,  was  made  a  fundamental  matter,  and  the  ten-4 
dency  was  to  foster  a  practical  and  undogmatic  Chris-(l 
tianity  wholly  unlike  the  official  Christianity  of  the 
scholastic  period. 

One  result  of  pietism's  change  of  interest  from  dog- 
ma to  life  was  the  rapid  growth  of  the  spirit  of  toler- 
ance for  other  views  and  other  sects.  Spener  felt  more 
at  one  with  Christians  of  pietistic  tendencies  in  other 
communions  than  with  those  of  another  spirit  in  his 
own.  In  the  Reformed  churches  and  even  in  Roman 
Catholicism  he  recognized  that  the  experience  of  re- 
generation and  union  with  Christ  was  common,  and  it 
meant  much  more  to  him  than  the  possession  of  an 
orthodox  system  of  theology.  Of  the  unconverted  and 
worldly-minded  he  was  not  tolerant;  with  them  the 
true  Christian  could  have  no  communion,  even  though 
they  were  members  of  the  same  Church.  But  true 
children  of  God,  wherever  found,  were  bound  together 
by  a  common  spirit.  Thus  pietism  was  disintegrating, 
not  only  of  the  traditional  system  of  theology,  but  of 
existing  ecclesiastical  institutions  as  well. 

Pietism  affected  the  traditional  theology  and  pro- 


S  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

moted  its  disintegration  not  simply  by  bringing  about 
a  general  change  of  emphasis  from  doctrine  to  life, 
but  also  by  drawing  a  distinction  between  important 
and  unimportant  doctrines,  thus  tending  to  reduce  the 
traditional  system  to  low  terms.  As  has  been  said, 
Spener  rejected  no  part  of  the  orthodox  faith,  but  he 
recognized  as  essential  only  those  beliefs  which  pro- 
moted personal  piety  or  had  a  direct  bearing  upon  the 
Christian  life.  This,  too,  meant  a  radical  change  of 
attitude.  Saving  faith  had  been  generally  identified 
with,  or  at  least  made  to  include  as  an  essential  ele- 
ment, the  acceptance  of  the  whole  orthodox  system. 
Whatever  the  relation  of  any  particular  doctrine  to 
practical  life  and  conduct,  as  a  part  of  the  revealed 
truth  of  God  it  must  be  believed  if  one  would  be  saved. 
It  was  necessary  to  accept  it  not  because  it  appealed 
to  a  man,  or  affected  his  life  and  character,  but  because 
it  had  been  revealed.  To  treat  it  as  unimportant  or 
as  a  matter  of  indifference  was  to  show  contempt  for 
God  from  whom  it  came.  The  principle  was  identical 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  which  made  obedience  to 
the  Church  in  all  matters  of  faith  as  well  as  practice 
essential  to  salvation.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
Protestant  orthodoxy,  as  well  as  Catholic,  to  distin- 
guish between  essential  and  unessential  doctrines  is 
a  fatal  error.  But  this  is  exactly  what  pietism  did. 
'^While  not  denying  or  questioning  any  part  of  the  tra- 
'ditional  system,  it  deliberately  put  certain  doctrines 
into  the  forefront  and  made  the  acceptance  of  them 
alone  necessary.  The  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  re- 
generation and  sanctification  by  the  Holy  Spirit  eveiy 


PIETISM  9 

Christian  must  experience  for  himself.  All  doctrines 
which  he  could  not  thus  experience  and  which  by  their 
very  nature  stood  apart  from  his  daily  life  he  could 
afford  to  forget. 

Of  course,  however  sound  in  the  faith  Spener  might 
remain  and  however  active  he  might  be  in  religious 
work,  his  principles  must  be  anathema  both  to  the 
orthodox  theologians  and  to  the  ruling  ecclesiastics  of 
his  day.  A  bitter  controversy  speedily  broke  out  which 
ended  in  a  complete  victory  for  pietism,  and  for  half 
a  century  it  remained  the  dominant  force  in  German 
religious  life. 

The  effect  of  pietism  upon  the  old  dogmatic  sys- 
tem was  disintegrating  but  not  wholly  destructive.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  while  many  doctrines  were  pushed 
by  it  into  the  background  and  permanently  lost  interest 
for  most  Protestant  Christians,  and  while  the  general 
attitude  toward  dogmatic  theology  was  changed,  cer- 
tain articles  of  the  old  faith  were  given  a  new  hold 
upon  the  Protestant  world.  Just  because  the  practical 
bearing  of  a  doctrine  was  made  the  test  of  its  im- 
portance those  doctrines  which  were  wrapped  up  in 
the  pietistic  interpretation  of  the  Christian  life,  and 
were  inseparable  from  it,  acquired  a  value  they  had 
not  had  before,  and  when  rationalism  came  upon  the 
scene,  with  its  negation  of  these  very  doctrines,  they 
were  made  the  heart  of  a  new  orthodoxy  which  con- 
tinues to  the  present  day  largely  unconscious  of  the 
difference  between  itself  and  the  older  orthodoxy 
which  it  has  displaced,  in  fact  much  more  akin  to  that 
older  orthodoxy  than  the  original  relation  between 


lO  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

pietism  and  scholasticism  might  lead  us  to  expect.  But 
of  this  later.    Here  I  am  concerned  with  pietism  only 
as  a  disintegrating  force.    As  such  its  work  was  two- 
fold.    It  undermined  respect  for  dogmatic  theology 
1   in  general,  turning  men's  attention  from  orthodoxy  to 
(.  life ;  and  it  reduced  the  traditional  system  to  compara- 
jtively  low  terms  by  distinguishing  its  essential  from 
i  its  unessential  tenets. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE     ENLIGHTENMENT. 

The  period  of  the  Enlightenment  witnessed  a  gen- 
eral change  of  the  widest  range  and  deepest  signifi- 
cance in  the  temper  and  attitude  of  the  peoples  of 
Northern  and  Western  Europe.  Tendencies  already  at 
work  in  the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  after  being 
checked  for  some  generations  by  the  Protestant  Refor- 
mation and  the  religious  wars  which  followed,  became 
everywhere  dominant  in  the  eighteenth  century,  com- 
monly known  as  the  century  of  the  Enlightenment, 
and  the  whole  world  of  thought  and  culture  was  trans- 
fonned.  The  humility,  the  self -distrust,  the  de-:, 
pend.ence  uppa—Supernatural  ^:pQH£rs,  the  submission 
to  external  authority,  the  subordination  of  time  to 
eternity  and  of  fact  to  symbol,  the  conviction  of  the 
insignificance  and  meanness  of  the  present  life,  the 
somber  sense  of  the  sin  of  man  and  the  evil  of  the 
world,  the  static  interpretation  of  reality,  the  passive 
acceptance  of  existing  conditions  and  the  belief  that 
ameHoration  can  come  only  in  another  world  beyond 
the  grave,  the  dualism  between  God  and  man,  heaven 
and  earth,  spirit  and  flesh,  the  ascetic  renunciation  of 
the  world  and  its  pleasures — all  of  which  charac- 
terized the  Middle  Ages — were  widely  overcome,  and 


12  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

men  faced  life  with  a  new  confidence  in  themselves, 
with  a  new  recognition  of  human  power  and  achieve- 
ment, with  a  new  appreciation  of  present  values,  and 
with  a  new  conviction  of  the  onward  progress  of  the 
race  in  past  and  future. 

The  fast  multiplying  discoveries  of  physical  science 
I  and  the  ever  advancing  conquest  of  the  forces  of  na- 
ture gave  them  a  growing  sense  of  mastery  over  their 
environment,  while  the  promise  of  ever  new  secrets 
to  be  disclosed  and  ever  new  victories  to  be  achieved 
made  the  world  far  more  interesting  than  it  had  once 
been  and  endowed  it  with  a  new  fascination  for  seri- 
ous and  thoughtful  minded  men.  Sir  Thomas  More's 
Utopia  and  Francis  Bacon's  Atlantis  were  early  illus- 
trations of  the  new  attitude.  The  latter,  particularly, 
with  its  picture  of  the  great  improvements  to  be  ef- 
fected by  mechanical  contrivances  of  all  sorts,  was 
prophetic  of  a  frame  of  mind  that  has  become  in- 
creasingly common  in  more  recent  generations.  The 
present  world  appealed  to  men,  not  simply  for  what 
it  was  but  for  what  it  was  becoming.  The  idea  of 
indefinite  progress,  the  confident  expectation  of  a  con- 
tinuous advance  in  human  culture  and  a  continuous 
betterment  of  the  conditions  of  earthly  life,  laid  hold 
of  the  imagination  and  kindled  the  enthusiasm  of  an 
ever  enlarging  circle. 

As  time  passed  it  became  more  and  more  common 

not  simply  to  expect  progress  but  to  labor  to  promote 

f  it.     Discontent  with  existing  conditions  of  one  sort 

I  and  another  increasingly  took  the  form  of  agitation, 

I  rather  than  resignation,   until   finally   the    man   who 


THE   ENLIGHTENMENT.  13 

tamely  and  piously  submitted  to  industrial  oppres- 
sion or  economic  injustice,  consoling  himself  and  his 
neighbors  with  the  picture  of  a  future  life  where  all 
would  be  well,  became  an  object  not  of  admiration,  as 
he  would  once  have  been,  but  of  contempt.  The  active 
virtues  gradually  crowded  the  passive  into  the  back- 
ground, and  the  latter  lost  their  glamour  even  for 
religious-minded  men. 

The  fruits  of  the  spirit  of  the  Enlightenment,  which 
has  thus  been  hastily  characterized,  were  seen  in  every 
sphere — political,  social,  economic,  industrial,  scien-^^ 
tific,  philosophical,  ethical,  and  religious.  In  some  the 
effects  were  more  marked  than  in  others  and  the 
changes  more  rapid.  In  some  transformation  was 
already  complete  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  others 
it  is  hardly  yet  under  way.  The  period  of  the  En- 
lightenment specifically  so-called  is  long  since  over, 
but  the  world  is  still  living  under  the  control  of  some 
of  its  ideals,  others  it  has  not  yet  attained  to,  while 
still  others  it  has  already  transcended.  ^y" 

In  the  political  sphere  the  Enlightenment  promoted 
constitutionalism,  laid  the  foundations  of  democracy, 
undermined  belief  in  the  supernatural  origin  of  the 
State  and  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  destroyed  the 
theocratic  ideas  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  early  Protes- 
tantism. Institutionalism  gave  way  to  individualism 
in  every  line,  and  reverence  for  the  great  political, 
social,  and  religious  institutions  of  the  past  rapidly 
waned.  The  theory  of  natural  rights,  carried  to 
hitherto  unheard  of  lengths,  was  accepted  as  axio- 
matic.   Developing  industry  and  commerce  completed 


14  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  destruction  of  feudalism  and  contributed  to  eco- 
nomic freedom  and  to  the  disappearance  of  time- 
honored  social  distinctions. 

Culture  was  becoming  largely  secular.  Intellectual 
leadership  was  passing  from  the  clergy  to  the  laity, 
and  education  from  the  Church  to  the  State.  That 
morality  should  be  divorced  from  theology  and  ac- 
quire an  independent  value  of  its  own  was  almost  in- 
evitable. As  was  natural  in  an  age  when  the  worth 
of  the  individual  human  life  was  emphasized  above  all 
else,  when  ecclesiasticism  and  theological  ethics  were 
at  a  discount,  and  when  reaction  against  party  strife 
was  widespread,  benevolence,  or  regard  for  the  good 
of  others,  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  supreme  virtue. 
The  notion  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man  grew 
more  and  more  common,  and  though  it  led  to  practical 
philanthropy  on  a  large  scale  only  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  it  had  wide  influence  already  in  the  eighteenth 
in  abating  cruelty,  race  hatred,  class  antagonism,  and 
religious  intolerance,  and  in  fostering  humanitarian 
ideals.  Everywhere  a  milder,  more  humane,  and  more 
cosmopolitan  spirit  was  making  headway,  at  any  rate 
among  the  educated  classes.  Underlying  the  whole 
movement  was  a  new  appreciation  of  present  values, 
a  new  trust  in  man,  and  a  new  interest  in  human  life. 

In  philosophy  rationalism,  beginning  with  Descartes, 
and  sensationalism  and  empiricism,  beginning  with 
Hobbes  and  Locke,  took  the  place  of  the  old  theologi- 
cal method.  Both  meant  a  revolt  against  the  authori- 
tarianism of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  interest  of,  the 
thinking  and  perceiving  individual.     In  the  one  case 


THE  ENLIGHTENMENT  I5 

truth  was  to  be  known  by  its  clearness  and  self -con- 
sistency rather  than  by  the  testimony  of  tradition  and 
revelation.  In  the  other  case  it  was  to  be  discovered 
by  reflection  upon  the  facts  given  in  sense  perception. 
The  human  reason,  whether  as  a  faculty  of  forming 
clear  ideas  or  of  drawing  conclusions  from  the  data 
of  experience,  became  the  supreme  court  of  appeal, 
and  the  notion  that  a  thing  could  be  true  and  not  ra- 
tional from  the  human  point  of  view  was  regarded  as 
a  scandal.  The  reason  to  which  appeal  was  made,  as 
time  passed,  came  to  be  regarded  more  and  more  as 
the  common  sense  of  the  mass  of  men.  With  their 
confidence  in  the  individual,  thinkers  believed  in  shar- 
ing their  philosophy,  like  everything  else,  with  the 
people  at  large,  and  abhorred  all  esotericism  and  mys- 
tery. A  privileged  class  seemed  as  much  out  of  place 
in  the  intellectual  realm  as  in  the  religious  or  political, 
and  popularization  was  carried  on  in  every  line  on  a 
scale  never  before  seen. 

In  the  religious  sphere — our  particular  concern  here 
— the  effects  of  the  Enlightenment  were  very  great. 
The  old  theological  system  still  existed  but  little  modi- 
fied by  the  Protestant  Reformation.  The  Enlighten- 
ment brought  it  into  widespread  discredit  and  seriously 
weakened,  where  it  did  not  altogether  destroy,  its  hold 
upon  thinking  men.  And  with  the  old  theology  Chris- 
tianity itself  suffered  a  reverse  and  seemed  for  a  time 
about  to  perish  from  the  earth.  The  secret  of  the 
trouble  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  traditional  Christian 
system  was  framed  in  an  age  whose  intellectual  atmos- 


1 6  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

phere  was  vastly  different  from  that  of  the  period 
of  the  Enlightenment. 

The  latter  is  commonly  called  the  age  of  ration- 
alism, as  if  in  it  alone  human  reason  was  applied  to 
the  investigation  and  consideration  of  Christian  truth. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  there  have  been  few  periods  of 
Christian  history  when  the  human  reason  was  not  so 
employed.  In  the  early  centuries  the  Patristic  the- 
ologians, who  did  most  to  frame  the  historic  Christian 
system,  made  use  of  the  intellectual  principles  and 
methods  commonly  current  in  their  day.  In  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  the  golden  age  of 
Catholic  orthodoxy,  the  application  of  reason  to  re- 
ligion reached  its  zenith,  and  Christianity  w^as  sub- 
jected to  a  scrutiny  of  the  most  minute  and  exhaus- 
tive character.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  rule  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  and  the  rational  principles  gen- 
erally accepted  by  thinking  men  were  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  identical  with  those  prevailing  when  the  his- 
toric system  was  framed,  and  so  the  application  of 
reason  to  religion  meant  the  confirmation,  not  the  criti- 
cism, of  the  old.  In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, the  age  of  nominalism,  reason  and  religion 
were  divorced,  and  the  latter  was  accepted,  despite 
its  admitted  irrationality,  by  Occam  and  the  later 
schoolmen  on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  by  the 
Protestant  reformers  on  the  authority  of  Scripture. 
Luther  even  denounced  the  reason  and  gloried  in  pro- 
claiming the  disharmony  between  the  Christian  gospel 
and  the  mind  of  the  natural  man. 

But  those  who  came  after  him  soon  began  to  feel 


THE  ENLIGHTENMENT  17 

the  need  of  rationalizing  the  new  system  as  the  old  had 
been,  and  the  consequence  was  the  scholastic  period 
in  Protestantism  which  lasted  for  a  full  century.  As 
compared  with  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Protestant 
scholasticism  had  the  great  disadvantage  of  being  out 
of  line  with  the  prevailing  intellectual  currents  of  the 
day.  As  a  result  it  was  from  the  beginning  a  nar- 
rower, more  inhospitable,  and  intolerant  thing  than 
its  Catholic  prototype,  and  its  downfall  was  the  more 
speedy  and  complete.  From  the  point  of  view  of  its 
partisans  it  was  a  thoroughly  rational  system,  based 
to  be  sure  in  considerable  part  upon  revelation,  but 
according  throughout  with  the  principles  of  human 
reason  as  they  understood  them. 

What  happened  in  the  period  of  the  Enlightenment 
was  not  that  reason  then  first  began  to  be  applied  to 
Christianity,  but  that  reason  was  differently  inter- 
preted. The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  Enlighten- 
ment— its  general  spirit  and  attitude — was  utterly  un- 
like that  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  Protestant  scholas- 
ticism. As  a  result  demands  were  made  upon  the  tra- 
ditional theological  system  which  it  could  not  meet. 
That  it  was  radically  out  of  harmony  with  the  new 
way  of  looking  at  things  speedily  appeared,  and  the 
only  alternative  was  to  transform  it  or  to  reject  it,  to 
adjust  it  to  the  modern  world  or  to  abandon  it  as 
forever  outgrown.  In  the  late  Middle  Ages,  when 
the  leading  thinkers  were  all  Catholic  theologians  and 
for  the  most  part  monks,  the  situation  had  been  saved 
by  recourse  to  the  figment  of  the  double  truth.  The 
still  unquestioned  authority  of  the   Roman   Church 


1 8  THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

was  then  great  enough  to  support  faith  in  the  irra- 
tional. But  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  period  of 
a  rapidly  growing  lay  culture,  when  the  long  conflict 
of  the  sects  had  undermined  confidence  in  all  ecclesi- 
astical authority,  such  recourse  was  an  impossibility 
for  most  thinking  men.  And  so  began  the  age  of 
rationalism  so-called,  when  the  application  of  reason 
to  religion  resulted  in  the  criticism  and  repudiation 
of  the  old  faiths,  not,  as  so  often  in  the  past,  in  their 
confirmation.  In  other  words  the  age  of  rationalism 
was  not,  as  distinguished  from  other  periods,  the  age 
of  reason,  but  of  the  conflict  of  the  new  reason  with 
the  old. 

The  emergence  of  such  a  conflict  always  raises 
the  question  of  authority.  So  long  as  the  past  and 
present  are  in  harmony  there  is  no  dispute  over  the 
matter.  By  common  consent  reason  and  revelation 
are  taken  to  be  mutually  confirmatory.  But  when  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  changes,  the  supporters  of  the 
old  system,  unable  to  appeal  longer  to  rational  prin- 
ciples of  common  acceptance,  are  likely  to  substitute 
authority  for  reason  and  to  maintain,  not  the  unwis- 
dom of  the  present  as  compared  with  the  past,  but 
the  unwisdom  of  all  reason  as  compared  with  reve- 
lation. To  fortify  the  old  faith,  appeal  is  taken  to 
the  supernatural,  and  it  is  thus  removed  from  the 
dangerous  arena  of  rational  consideration  and  dis- 
cussion. It  depends  then  upon  how  far  the  age  has 
traveled  from  the  old,  whether  revelation,  the  truth 
once  deemed  rational,  shall  be  regarded  as  merely 
above  reason  or  as   contradictory  thereto.      In  the 


THE   ENLIGHTENMENT  I9 

former  case  those  who  retain  the  old  system  may  still 
accord  reason  a  large  place  in  the  religious  realm, 
and  may  recognize  its  instrumental  if  not  its  norma- 
tive or  critical  function;  in  the  latter  case  it  will  in- 
evitably be  denounced  as  having  no  place  therein. 

A  fundamental  tenet  of  the  traditional  Christian 
system,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  was  the  fall  of 
Adam,  resulting  in  the  depravity  of  the  whole  human 
race  and  its  inability  to  save  itself  from  the  conse- 
quences of  its  sin.  With  this  was  bound  up  the  belief 
in  Christianity  as  a  supernatural  redemption,  in  Christ 
as  a  divine  Saviour,  in  the  Church  as  the  sole  ark  of 
salvation,  and  in  the  sacraments  as  indispensable  means 
of  grace.  With  all  this,  as  with  the  doctrine  under- 
lying it,  the  spirit  of  the  Enlightenment  was  largely  out 
of  sympathy.  A  controlling  principle  of  the  new  age 
was  the  worth  and  ability  of  man,  a  controlling  ideal 
his  independence  and  self-reliance.  It  w^as  inevitable 
that  two  so  widely  different  points  of  view  should 
come  into  speedy  conflict.  InSocinianism,in  Arminian- 
ism,  in  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  rationalism, 
opposition  to  the  old  appeared  in  varying  forms  and 
degrees.  Sometimes  it  meant  only  a  slight  revision  of 
the  existing  system — the  opposition  being  neither 
thoroughgoing  nor  consistent — sometimes  it  meant  its 
complete  transformation  or  rejection.  Always  the  doc- 
trine of  the  fall  was  minimized,  or  its  scope  narrowed, 
and  its  effect  upon  the  nature  and  character  of  man 
reduced  to  low  terms.  This  meant  of  course  a  grow- 
ing loss  of  emphasis  upon  those  doctrines  which  were 
bound  up  with  it.    If  man  was  riot  as  helpless  as  had 


20  THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

been  supposed,  his  need  of  supernatural  redemption 
and  supernatural  power  was  less  imperative.  Already 
by  the  Socinians  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  find  the 
function  of  Christianity  reduced  to  the  revelation  of 
truth  in  order  that  man  may  know  the  way  of  life 
which,  once  known,  it  is  wholly  within  his  power  to 
follow.  This  estimate  of  Christianity  prevailed  more 
and  more  widely  among  the  rationalists.  The  gospel 
ceased  to  mean  supernatural  power  given  from  above 
and  came  to  mean  only  supernatural  light. 

But  it  was  natural  that  the  question  should  be 
raised.  Why  is  supernatural  light  needed?  If  man 
has  inherent  power  to  follow  the  way  of  life,  why  may 
he  not  also  discover  it  for  himself?  The  Socinians 
replied  in  good  traditional  fashion:  "So  glorious  a 
recompense  and  the  sure  means  of  obtaining  it  must 
wholly  depend  on  the  will  and  counsel  of  God.  But 
this  will  and  counsel  what  human  being  can  explore 
and  clearly  ascertain,  unless  they  be  revealed  by  God 
himself?"^  In  other  words  God  demands  of  man 
something  else  than  mere  natural  virtue,  or  righteous- 
ness grounded  in  the  nature  of  things.  But  it  was 
inevitable  in  the  period  of  the  Enlightenment  that 
there  should  be  a  growing  number  to  whom  this  gen- 
erally accepted  position  seemed  wholly  vicious,  and 
by  the  so-called  deists  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  it  was  vigorously  attacked.  The  be- 
lief that  God  requires,  whether  in  faith  or  conduct, 
anything  arbitrary  or  morally  indifferent,  interferes,  so 
they  claimed,  with  the  practice  of  true  virtue,  and  has 
^  Racovian  Catechism,  Sec.  II,  Chapter  i. 


THE   ENLIGHTENMENT.  21 

been  productive  of  all  sorts  of  evils,  including  in- 
tolerance and  persecution. 

This  left  for  religion  no  other  function  than  to 
promote  natural  morality  by  giving  it  the  support  of 
divine  authority.  Man  knows  his  duty,  but  he  needs 
to  be  incited  to  its  performance  by  a  recognition  of 
it  as  the  will  of  God,  who  in  a  world  to  come  will  re- 
ward the  obedient  and  punish  the  disobedient.  But 
for  this  it  seemed  to  the  deists  that  no  supernatural 
revelation  was  needed,  for  the  belief  in  God,  in  virtue 
as  his  will,  and  in  future  rewards  and  punishments, 
existed  quite  independently  of  revelation,  constituting 
the  tenets  of  an  alleged  natural  religion  supposed  to 
be  discoverable  by  the  natural  reason  and  to  be  known 
to  all  peoples.  Some  of  them  consequently  rejected 
Christianity  altogether.  Others,  distinguishing  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus  from  the  historic  Christian  sys- 
tem, declared  the  former  to  be  identical  with  the  re- 
ligion of  nature  and  recognized  Jesus  as  a  true  prophet 
of  the  common  faith  in  God,  virtue,  and  immortality. 

As  to  the  place  of  religion,  there  was  general  agree- 
ment between  the  deists  and  the  orthodox  theologi- 
ans who  opposed  them.  Even  those  who  believed  that 
Christianity  was  a  divine  revelation  and  that  it  incul- 
cated duties  in  themselves  morally  indifferent,  recog- 
nized the  promotion  of  virtue  as  its  great  end  and 
saw  in  all  its  requirements  only  means  thereto.  At 
one  upon  this  point,  their  differences  were  of  minor 
importance.  The  fact  of  historic  significance  is  not 
the  divergence  of  view  between  deists  and  Christian 
apologists,  but  their  acceptance  of  common  intellectual 


22  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

principles  and  their  reading  of  religion  in  the  light 
of  them. 

One  effect  of  the  Enlightenment,  as  has  been  seen, 
was  to  minimize  many  of  the  doctrines  of  historic 
Christianity  and  to  reduce  the  system  to  low  terms.  In 
this  respect  it  was  similar  to  pietism,  but  the  simplifi- 
cation proceeded  on  altogether  different  principles. 
In  the  one  case  the  doctrines  rooted  in  Christian  ex- 
perience, particularly  the  experience  of  conversion  and 
regeneration,  were  emphasized ;  in  the  other  those  most 
closely  allied  to  the  tenets  of  natural  religion — mono- 
theism, virtue,  and  immortality.  It  is  directly  due  to 
the  influence  of  the  Enlightenment  that  such  tenets  as 
these  are  still  widely  recognized  outside  of  evangelical 
circles  as  the  heart  of  Christianity  and  all  else  as  un- 
important in  comparison  therewith. 

The  influence  of  the  Enlightenment  was  not  ex- 
hausted in  the  reduction  of  Christianity  to  low  terms, 
or  even  in  the  complete  rejection  of  all  supernatural 
revelation.  Many  went  still  further  and  repudiated 
the  religion  of  nature  itself,  finding  it  unnecessary  and 
irrational.  It  was  inevitable  that  when  religion  was 
regarded  as  a  mere  means  to  morality  the  more  the 
principle  of  human  ability  was  emphasized  the  less 
need  there  must  seem  of  religion.  Man  might  well 
appear  sufficient  unto  himself  in  this  matter  as  in 
all  others  and  hence  able  to  dispense  with  religious 
faith.  Particularly  the  doctrine  of  future  rewards 
and  punishments,  which  constituted  an  essential  tenet 
of  both  revealed  and  natural  religion  as  currently  un- 
derstood, was  out  of  place  from  the  point  of  view 


THE  ENLIGHTENMENT  23 

of  a  consistent  believer  in  human  ability  and  autonomy, 
for  it  implied  that  man  is  naturally  evil  rather  than 
good  and  needs  extraneous  supports  if  he  is  to  be  kept 
virtuous.  As  a  result  of  the  interpretation  of  the  fu- 
ture life  in  terms  of  reward  and  punishment,  which 
prevailed  so  generally  in  the  age  of  the  Enlightenment, 
the  doctrine  of  immortality  itself  fell  ultimately  into 
widespread  disrepute,  from  which,  it  may  be  remarked, 
it  has  not  yet  wholly  recovered. 

When  with  the  conviction  of  the  superfluity  of  all 
religion,  natural  as  well  as  revealed,  was  associated 
doubt  as  to  the  demonstrability  of  its  tenets,  there  was 
nothing  left  but  to  reject  religion  altogether.  The  re- 
sult was  scepticism,  going  on  often  to  dogmatic 
atheism. 

Thus  the  Enlightenment  bore  fruit  in  the  disintegra- 
tion not  only  of  the  traditional  Christian  system  but 
also  of  the  simpler  Christianity  of  Christ  himself  and 
in  many  cases  of  all  religious  faith  whatsoever.  Un- 
less religion  had  some  other  function  than  the  mere 
promotion  of  virtue,  unless  it  offered  something  else 
than  a  crutch  to  the  lame  or  an  aid  to  the  weak,  there 
was  apparently  no  place  for  it  more. 


CHAPTER   III 

NATURAL    SCIENCE 

/  The  attitude  of  the  Christian  fathers  toward  the 
I  physical  universe  and  its  phenomena  was  controlled  by 
two  considerations,  both  of  which  have  ceased  in  mod- 
ern days  to  influence  the  minds  of  thinking  men.  In 
the  first  place  they  were  so  exclusively  interested  in 
spiritual  and  eternal  things  that  the  world  of  sense 
and  time  seemed  wholly  unworthy  of  study.  In  this 
estimate  they  were  not  alone.  Already  long  before 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  especially  under 
the  influence  of  the  later  Platonism,  a  growing  interest 
in  the  ideal  and  spiritual  and  a  growing  contempt  for 
external  fact  marked  the  thinking  of  the  day.  Obser- 
vation was  at  a  discount,  and  symbolism  and  allegory 
alone  seemed  attractive.  With  this  contempt  for  mere 
fact  was  joined  a  more  or  less  extreme  asceticism, 
based  not  so  much  upon  the  conviction  of  the  essential 
evil  of  matter  as  upon  the  persuasion  of  its  imperma- 
nence  and  relative  worthlessness.  Into  this  heritage 
the  early  fathers  entered,  and  the  common  tendency 
reached  in  them  its  highest  development  under  the 
influence  of  their  overmastering  sense  of  the  nearness 
and  eternal  glories  of  the  future  life.  Only  spiritual 
matters  were  thought  worthy  the  attention  of  the 
Christian,  and  to  spend  his  time  upon  things  which  had 
V  24 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  2$ 

no  relation  to  the  soul's  salvation  was  to  sin  grievously.  \ 
The  words  of  the  third  century  father  Arnobius  ex- 
pressed the  common  Christian  sentiment  of  his  own 
and  subsequent  centuries:  "Leave  these  things  to 
God.  .  .  .  Your  reasons  are  not  free  to  involve  you 
in  such  questions,  and  vainly  to  bother  about  matters 
so  remote.  Your  interests  are  in  jeopardy — I  mean 
the  salvation  of  your  souls."  ^ 

The  fathers  recognized  that  there  might  be  two  ad- 
vantages in  the  study  of  the  world  in  which  we  live — 
to  discover  the  glory  of  God  revealed  in  his  handi- 
work, and  to  elucidate  the  teaching  of  Scripture.  And 
so  some  of  them,  as  for  instance  Basil,  Ambrose, 
Augustine,  and  Isidore  of  Seville,  wrote  books  upon 
the  creation  of  the  world  and  upon  one  or  another 
aspect  of  the  physical  universe.  But  their  descriptions 
of  external  phenomena  were  based  not  so  much  upon 
observation  as  upon  the  statements  of  the  Bible,  or 
were  at  any  rate  made  to  conform  with  and  illustrate 
those  statements.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  second 
consideration  which  controlled  the  attitude  of  the 
Christian  fathers  toward  the  physical  universe.  They 
accepted  the  Bible  as  a  divine  book  and  believed  that  it 
contained  an  infallible  and  authoritative  account  of  the 
world  and  its  pHenomena.  "ihat  :5cripture,'*  Augus- 
tine declares,  "which  proves  the  truth  of  its  historical 
statements  by  the  fulfillment  of  its  prophecies,  gives 
no  false  information."  ^ 

^  Adversus  Nationes,  II,  6i. 

*De  Civitate  Dei,  Book  XVI,  Chapter  9.  Cf.  also  De  Genesi 
ad  Litteram,  Book  II,  Chapter  5. 


26  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

For  more  than  a  thousand  years  this  principle  con- 
trolled the  thought  of  the  Church.    During  the  greater 
part  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  be  learned  in  science  meant 
above  all  to  be  learned  in  the  sacred  text,  in  its  ac- 
counts of  the  origin  of  the  universe  and  in  its  descrip- 
tions of  natural  phenomena  and  of  animal  and  vege- 
\  table  life.     The  scientific  text-books  of  the  age  were 
[based  upon  the  Bible,  at  least  in  considerable  part, 
and  Biblical  ideas  of  astronomy,  physics,  geography, 
Izoology  and  the  like   were   handed   down  unchanged 
/from  generation  to  generation. 

(      But  this  meant  that  the  Christian  world  of  the  Mid- 
'  die  Ages  was  held  in  bondage  to  views  of  nature  far 
less  enlightened  even  than  those  of  the  classical  world, 
\  for  the  Biblical  writers  reproduced  for  the  most  part 
/^traditions  of  ancient  Chaldgea  and  Babylonia  rather 
)  than  the  results  of  the  more  intelligent  study  of  nature 
and  history  carried  on  among  the  Greeks.    The  earth, 
for  instance,  was  commonly  thought  of  as  a  flat  oblong 
surface  surrounded  by  the  sea,  the  whole  enclosed  by 
four  immense  walls  which  sustained  the  firmament, 
or  vault  of  the  heavens,  which  in  turn  supported  a 
vast  store  of  water.     In  the  lower  part  of  this  box- 
like structure  lived  men  and  animals ;  in  the  upper  part 
the  angels  and  other  heavenly  beings.    The  sun,  moon, 
and  stars  were  suspended  from  the  firmament  to  light 
the  earth  and  were  moved  to  and  fro  by  the  angels 
who  also  had  the  office  of  opening  the  windows  of 
i    heaven  to  water  the  earth  from  the  floods  above.     It 
'     was  upon  this  primitive  topography  of  the  universe 
L  that  Christian  ideas  of  a  localized  heaven  and  hell 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  27 

were  chiefly  based — ideas  that  had  perhaps  as  much 
as  anything  else  to  do  with  the  long  continued  reluc- 
tance of  the  mass  of  men  to  accept  the  Copernican 
astronomy  when  it  was  broached  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Although  the  picture  which  has  been  described 
was  generally  accepted  in  the  ancient  Church,  the 
spherical  view  of  the  earth,  taught  by  the  Pytha- 
goreans, by  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  other  Greeks,  also 
found  more  or  less  hesitating  acceptance  here  and 
there  among  the  fathers,  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  es- 
tablished itself  in  the  minds  of  Thomas  Aquinas  and 
other  schoolmen  who  made  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy 
virtually  official  in  the  West.  The  Bible  was  rein- 
terpreted in  such  a  way  as  to  give  its  support  to  this 
theory  which  was  made  part  of  a  vast  cosmico-theo- 
logical  system.  The  earth  is  at  the  center  of  the  uni- 
verse; around  it  all  the  heavenly  bodies  revolve;  for 
its  sake  they  exist,  as  it  exists  for  the  sake  of  man, 
whose  redemption  and  growth  in  grace  are  the  chief 
end  of  the  whole  creation.  But  even  where  the  primi- 
tive notion  was  abandoned  and  the  spherical  view  of 
the  earth  accepted,  the  antipodes  were  long  denied, 
both  on  rational  grounds,  for  it  seemed  absurd  to  think 
of  men  walking  with  heads  downward,  and  also  and 
particularly  on  Biblical  grounds,  for  the  Apostles  had 
preached  the  gospel  to  all  the  world  in  accordance  with 
Christ's  command,  and  yet  they  had  certainly  not 
preached  to  the  antipodes.  Moreover  it  would  be 
impossible  for  men  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth  to 


28  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

see  and  greet  Christ  descending  at  his  second  coming 
upon  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

Whichever  picture  of  the  earth  was  accepted,  it  was 
everywhere  believed  that  the  universe  was  created  out 
of  nothing  at  a  fixed  period  of  time,  commonly  sup- 
posed to  be  about  four  thousand  years  before  the  com- 
ing of  Christ;  that  all  the  species  in  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms  were  then  brought  into  existence 
in  their  present  form ;  and  that  the  whole  human  race 
has  descended  from  a  single  pair.  The  account  in 
Genesis  was  taken  in  the  most  literal  fashion,  and  the 
order  of  events  there  depicted  was  supposed  to  have 
been  revealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and  its  acceptance  to 
be  binding  upon  the  Christian  conscience.  Moreover, 
the  constant  activity  of  God  was  believed  to  be  neces- 
sary to  sustain  the  universe  and  keep  it  from  lapsing 
again  into  nothingness.  Infinite  power,  so  it  was 
thought,  is  needed  to  preserve  as  well  as  to  create. 
The  world  is  in  God's  hands,  and  he  can  do  at  any 
moment  what  he  wills  with  it.  All  that  happens  is 
directly  caused  by  him.  He  can  follow  regular  ways 
of  working,  or  he  can  depart  altogether  from  estab- 
lished precedent  and  produce  phenomena  quite  unlike 
anything  known  before  and  quite  unconnected  with 
what  precedes  and  follows. 

But  God,  so  it  was  believed,  was  not  the  only  spirit- 
ual being  having  to  do  with  the  physical  universe.  In 
spite  of  the  theoretical  monotheism  of  the  Christian 
faith  pagan  influence  continued  to  make  itself  felt,  and 
the  earth  and  the  heavens  were  peopled  with  all  sorts 
of  spirits,  good  and  bad,  some  of  them  carrying  out 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  29 

t 

the  behests  of  God,  others  opposing  and  striving  to 
thwart  his  purposes  in  every  possible  way.  Storms, 
floods,  eclipses,  comets,  famine,  and  pestilence  were 
supposed  to  be  the  work  of  evil  demons,  or  they  might 
be  sent  by  God  himself  to  punish  the  wicked  or  to  chas- 
tise his  own  people.  All  natural  phenomena  were  read 
in  relation  to  man.  The  sun  shone  and  the  rain  fell 
for  his  sake,  and  every  unusual  event  was  a  portent 
for  his  instruction  or  warning. 

Medicine  was  largely  a_^Up2!5[5!HHL^'^^^^'  exor- 
cisms,^lSrms7andrincantations  supplementing  or  even 
taking  the  place  of  natural  remedies,  so  that  medical 
science  retrograded  rather  than  advanced  during  the 
long  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  was  not  that 
men  lacked  the  intelligence  and  skill  which  they  have 
shown  in  other  times,  but  that  the  belief  in  supernatu- 
ral powers,  superseding  and  setting  at  naught  the  ordi- 
nary forces  of  nature,  lay  like  a  pall  upon  the  minds 
of  cultured  and  ignorant  alike.  It  was  due  to  the 
same  notion  that  ideas  of  evidence  were  so  unlike  those 
of  to-day.  The  lot,  the  ordeal,  the  trial  by  battle — all 
sorts  of  methods  for  getting  supernatural  light — were 
resorted  to,  until  the  power  of  judging  events  and 
reasoning  upon  the  basis  of  observed  fact  seems  al- 
most to  have  perished  from  the  earth.  The  writings 
of  fathers,  schoolmen,  and  reformers  reveal  as  pro- 
found insight,  as  close  reasoning,  and  as  keen  logic 
as  can  be  found  in  the  greatest  works  of  modern  times, 
and  yet  they  are  disfigured  with  old  wives'  fables  and 
with  countless  incredible  tales.  The  truth  is,  they 
were  so  blind  to  the  play  of  natural  forces  in  the  physi- 


30  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

cal  universe  and  so  obsessed  with  the  idea  that  the 
world  is  the  abode  of  unseen  and  supernatural  beings 
of  all  kinds  that  the  unnatural  explanation  was  often 
more  congenial  than  the  natural,  and  to  believe  the  im- 
possible was  all  too  easy.  This  attitude,  in  an  age 
when  culture  had  made  great  advances  in  many  lines, 
and  when  the  childhood  of  the  world  was  long  since 
outgrown,  was  due  in  part  to  the  overabsorption  of 
the  leaders  of  human  thought  in  the  affairs  of  a  fu- 
ture world  and  another  life,  in  part  to  the  artificial 
and  factitious  support  given  to  primitive  notions  by 
the  belief  in  the  Bible  as  an  infallible  authority  in  the 
sphere  of  science.  So  long  as  that  interest  was  domi- 
nant, the  impulse  to  make  advances  in  the  knowledge 
of  things  as  they  are  was  lacking;  and  so  long  as  that 
belief  prevailed,  it  was  difficult  for  Christians  to  out- 
grow the  intellectual  atmosphere  and  the  attitude 
toward  the  physical  universe  reflected  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures. 

What  we  may  call  the  modern  view  of  the  world 
was  a  result,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  awakening  of 
a  new  interest  in  the  present  world  and  the  recogni- 
tion of  its  independent  value,  and  on  the  other  hand 
of  the  substitution  of  observation  and  experiment  for 
the  age-long  authority  of  the  Bible,  that  is,  the  substi- 
tution of  human  self-confidence  and  self-reliance  for 
complete  dependence  upon  the  supernatural.  At  both 
these  points  the  attitude  of  the  fathers  was  abandoned, 
and  its  abandonment  alone  made  the  scientific  progress 
of  modern  times  possible.  The  change  was  a  very 
gradual  one.     In  the  later  Middle  Ages  the  interest 


NATURAL  SCIENCE  3 1 

in  nature  was  beginning  to  awaken,  but  the  careful 
and  systematic  study  of  it  was  slow  in  following. 
Roger  Bacon,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  practiced  the 
method  of  observation  and  experiment  in  a  more  or 
less  haphazard  fashion  and  with  an  unfortunate  ad- 
herence to  the  traditional  belief  that  the  Scriptures 
contain  the  sum  of  all  knowledge  and  that  the  chief 
end  of  all  the  sciences  is  to  serve  theology.  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  empha- 
sized the  same  method  of  observation  and  experiment 
as  indispensable,  but  only  in  the  seventeenth  was  it  em- 
ployed on  a  large  scale  and  generally  recognized  as 
alone  legitimate  in  the  sphere  of  science.  In  the  lat- 
ter century  both  Francis  Bacon  and  Descartes  insisted 
on  banishing  theology  altogether  from  science  and  sub- 
stituting mechanical  for  final  causation  in  the  ex- 
planation of  all  phenomena. 

One  result  of  the  new  study  of  nature  with  "the  free 
mind"  was  a  tremendous  change  in  the  views  of  the 
world  handed  down  from  the  past.  Systematic  obser- 
vation, instead  of  confirming,  contradicted  most  of 
the  things  which  had  been  believed  for  centuries.  One 
after  another  traditional  idea  was  shown  to  be  erro- 
neous, and  gradually  an  entirely  new  picture  took  the 
place  of  the  old.  As  a  consequence  the  history  of 
modern  science  was  for  a  long  time  the  history  of  a 
constant  struggle  between  the  old  and  the  new,  every 
fact  of  observation  being  established  only  after  a  pro-  \ 
tracted  battle  with  existing  prejudice,  and  in  the  pres- 
ent case  unfortunately  the  prejudice  was  heightened  by 
the  belief  that  the  old  had  the  backing  of  divine  au- 


32  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

thority.  In  15 19  Magellan  demonstrated  the  spheric- 
ity of  the  earth  by  actually  circumnavigating  it,  but 
his  demonstration,  and  particularly  his  reports  of  the 
existence  of  people  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  were 
long  disbelieved  because  they  contradicted  time-hon- 
ored interpretations  of  Scripture.  The  Copernican  as- 
tronomy, first  published  to  the  world  in  1543  and 
confirmed  in  the  next  century  by  the  investigations 
and  experiments  of  Kepler  and  Galileo,  was  still  slower 
in  securing  acceptance.  In  this  case  not  only  were 
many  Biblical  passages  flatly  opposed  to  it,  but  it  was 
beset  with  other  serious  religious  difficulties.  The 
whole  cosmico-theological  system  elaborated  with  such 
care  by  the  great  medieval  theologians  was  imperiled 
by  it.  If  the  earth  was  not  the  center  of  the  universe, 
if  it  was  simply  one  of  a  number  of  planets  revolving 
around  the  sun,  the  old  notions  of  heaven  and  hell 
became  impossible,  and  the  traditional  Christiian 
scheme,  which  made  man  the  object  and  the  earth  the 
scene  of  the  great  drama  of  redemption,  seemed  dis- 
credited. As  a  matter  of  fact  the  surprising  thing  is 
not  that  Christians  felt  the  inconsistency  between  the 
new  science  and  the  old  theology,  but  that  they  were 
able  to  retain  so  much  of  the  old  after  the  new  had 
fought  its  way  to  universal  acceptance. 

Again,  the  great  expansion  in  the  size  of  the  uni- 
verse, resulting  from  the  labors  of  Galileo  and  other 
physicists  and  astronomers ;  the  antiquity  of  man  made 
evident  by  archeological  discoveries  begun  in  the 
seventeenth  century  and  continued  to  our  own  day; 
and  more  recently  the  demonstration  of  the  long  ages 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  33 

through  which  the  world  has  been  forming  and  life 
upon  it  developing — all  these  have  proved  successive 
shocks  to  traditional  Christian  belief.  Of  course,  every 
change  in  existing  opinion  is  bound  to  be  received 
at  first  with  incredulity,  but  in  all  these  matters 
/the  readjustment  might  have  taken  place  naturally 
and  without  harm  to  anybody,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
notion  that  the  Bible  is  an  infallible  authority  upon 
all  subjects  taken  together  with  the  fact  that  like  most 
other  ancient  documents  it  represents  a  world-view 
which  the  new  scientific  discoveries  were  showing  er- 
roneous at  one  point  after  another. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  collocation  of  circum- 
stances theologians  and  ecclesiastics  almost  uniformly 
opposed  every  advance  in  science  as  heretical  and  un- 
christian, and  there  thus  began  the  conflict  between  re- 
ligion and  science  which  troubled  the  Church  for  many 
a  generation.  Even  yet  we  hear  the  echoes  of  it 
now  and  then,  but  fortunately  the  battle  itself  is  over. 
Some  of  us  are  old  enough  to  remember  the  panic 
caused  in  Christian  circles  by  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
evolution,  the  fear  of  it  on  the  part  of  multitudes  o£| 
godly  people,  the  savage  attacks  upon  it  by  countle3S 
defenders  of  the  faith,  the  reiterated  assertions  that 
Christianity  and  evolution  are  incompatible  and  can- 
not exist  together.  When  we  realize  that  this  was  but 
a  repetition  of  what  had  been  occurring  at  intervals 
for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  we  can  form  some 
idea  of  what  Christian  faith  has  had  to  endure^.  The 
bodily  suffering  caused  by  the  fire  and  sword  of  per- 
secution is  not  always  the  worst  kind  of  agony.    Fear 


34  THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

for  the  safety  of  the  ark  of  the  Lord  may  often  tear 
the  pious  heart  as  nothing  else  can.  We  can  see  now 
that  Christians  brought  the  conflict  upon  themselves. 
But  it  was  none  the  less  dreadful,  and  no  one  who 
has  followed  it  carefully  can  regard  it  lightly  or  con- 
temptuously. It  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  a  conflict 
between  religion  and  science.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it 
was  rather  a  conflict  between  two  diverse  sciences,  the 
one  unfortunately  supported  by  the  Church  and  thus 
given  a  factitious  basis  which  it  never  should  have  had. 
It  was  this  that  led  to  the  unhappy  impression,  still 
widely  prevalent  even  now  when  the  old  conflict  is 
largely  a  thing  of  the  past,  that  Christianity  and  science 
are  by  their  very  nature  opposed  to  one  another,  an 
impression  that  has  undermined  all  respect  for  reli- 
gion in  many  quarters.  Had  the  Church  in  the  begin- 
ning frankly  recognized  that  the  Bible  and  the  fathers 
teach  an  antiquated  world-view,  and  frankly  put  itself 
on  the  side  of  scientific  observation  and  experiment,  the 
whole  religious  situation,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
would  be  to-day  far  other  than  it  is. 

Still  another  result  of  the  new  study  of  nature  was 
a  belief  in  the  operation  of  mechanical  causation  and 
the  control  of  natural  law  throughout  the  physical 
universe.  The  belief,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  the  fruit 
both  of  scientific  observation  and  of  philosophical  re- 
flection. By  the  philosophers  Descartes,  Spinoza,  Ba- 
con, Cud  worth,  and  many  others,  the  principle  of  me- 
chanical causation  and  uniform  law  was  vigorously 
defended,  and  the  labors  of  such  scientists  as  Kepler, 
Galileo,  and  Newton  raised  it  to  the  rank  of  a  scientific 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  35 

axiom.  With  his  theory  of  universal  gravitation  op- 
erating everywhere  according  to  a  fixed  formula,  New- 
ton particularly  gave  the  finishing  touch  to  the  con- 
ception. It  is  true  that  the  theory  of  law  and  the 
metaphysic  of  causation  have  undergone  great  changes 
in  modern  times.  Whereas  law  was  once  thought  of 
as  a  restraint  imposed  upon  the  universe  from  with- 
out and  wielding  an  absolute  power  over  nature,  it  is 
now  thought  of  simply  as  our  description  of  the  be- 
havior of  phenomena.  And  whereas  causation  was 
on^  pictured  as  a  bond  existing  between  things,  it 
is  now  widely  represented  simply  as  our  interpretation 
of  the  relations  of  phenomena.  But  in  spite  of  such 
changes  of  theory  the  general  situation  remains  the 
same.  Scientists  proceed  with  confidence  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  certain  consequences  invariably  follow 
certain  antecedents,  and  that  as  the  antecedents  are 
altered,  the  consequences  will  also  be.  It  is  upon  this 
assumption  indeed  that  every  investigator  proceeds  to- 
day. The  assumption  of  course  has  not  been  proved 
universally  valid  and  never  can  be,  but  it  is  the  com- 
mon assumption  underlying  all  experiment  and  the 
presupposition  upon  which  all  modern  science  rests. 

An  inevitable  result  of  the  growing  belief  in  the\ 
universality  of  mechanical  causation  and  the  unifor-  I 
mity  of  natural  law  was  the  gradual  minimizing  of ; 
supernatural   activity.      The  habit  steadily   grew  of* 
seeking  natural  causes  for  all  phenomena,  however 
unusual,  and  the  old  resort  to  supernatural  agency  to 
explain  strange  and  uncommon  events  was  generally 
abandoned.     It  may  often  be  impossible  to  discover 


36  THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

the  forces  at  work  and  to  predict  with  accuracy  the 
effects  which  will  follow.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
modern  scientist  is  well  aware  that  there  are  many 
things  he  cannot  explain  and  that  beyond  the  boun- 
daries of  his  knowledge  there  lies  a  vast  region  of  un- 
explored territory.  The  complacent  and  easy-going 
scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  summarily 
denied  everything  it  had  not  experienced  or  could  not 
understand,  is  no  longer  his.  He  recognizes  that  the 
world  is  full  of  mysteries  and  possesses  an  inexhausti- 
ble fund  of  surprises.  He  may  therefore  be  compelled 
frequently  to  enlarge  his  stock  of  natural  forces  ana  to 
revise  his  descriptions  of  the  phenomenal  world,  but 
it  does  not  occur  to  him  to  move  over  into  another 
realm,  and  because  the  agencies  with  which  he  is  ac- 
quainted do  not  account  for  the  new  fact  to  assume 
that  it  is  supernatural.  To  call  things  supernatural 
indeed  is  no  explanation  of  them  according  to  the 
modern  scientist,  for  to  explain  is  simply  to  point  out 
'  the  natural  connections  between  phenomena. 

The  general  attitude  described  has  become  so  in- 
stinctive and  so  much  a  part  of  our  world-view  that 
most  of  us  never  think  of  interpreting  extraordinary 
any  more  than  ordinary  occurrences  in  other  than  a 
naturalistic  way.  Fairies,  witches,  ghosts,  angels,  and 
demons,  once  freely  assumed  to  account  for  all  sorts 
of  phenomena,  have  simply  dropped  out  of  the  mind 
of  the  average  modern  man  and  no  longer  play  a  part 
in  his  experience.  Not  that  their  existence  has  been 
disproved,  but  that  they  have  become  superfluous. 

Another  effect  of  the  modern  scientific  attitude  was 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  37 

to  push  God  back  to  the  beginning  of  things  and  to 
regard  his  continued  activity  in  the  world  as  quite  un- 
necessary. GaHleo's  first  law  of  motion  enunciated  in 
1638  had  wide  influence  in  this  connection:  "Every 
body  continues  in  its  state  of  motion  or  of  rest,  unless 
acted  uporT^yjOffieopp^^^^  force."  Hitherto  it  had 
been  commonlybelieveHTEat  the  power  of  God  was 
needed  not  only  to  start  the  heavenly  bodies  upon  their 
courses  but  also  to  keep  them  in  motion.  Newton  still 
thought  divine  interference  occasionally  necessary  to 
correct  observed  irregularities  in  their  movements,  but 
later  it  was  shown  that  such  irregularities  corrected 
themselves  and  that  Newton's  assumption  was  there- 
fore gratuitous.  The  steadily  growing  tendency,  in- 
deed, was  to  find  ever  less  place  for  divine  activity 
in  connection  with  the  conduct  and  control  of  the 
physical  universe.  It  came  to  be  more  and  more 
widely  believed  that  in  the  beginning  God  had  im- 
pressed upon  the  world  the  laws  by  which  it  was 
thenceforth  to  be  governed  and  had  then  left  it  to  run 
of  itself. 

Meanwhile  many  who  shared  in  the  general  tendency 
to  minimize  the  activity  of  God  in  the  world  yet  recog- 
nized it  in  connection  with  the  founding  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  greatness  of  the  issues  involved,  so  it 
was  believed,  justified  in  this  particular  case  direct 
divine  interference  with  the  course  of  nature.  In 
order  to  guarantee  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity 
supernatural  powers  were  bestowed  upon  the  founders 
of  the  Church  and  miracles  were  wrought  by  them 
to  authenticate  their  mission.     The  new  world-view 


i 


38  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

made  it  much  more  difficult  to  believe  in  miracles  than 
it  had  been  in  earlier  days.  In  the  ancient  and  me- 
dieval world  they  were  commonly  accepted  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  There  was  no  reason  why  supernatural 
power  should  not  be  directly  exerted  at  any  time  and 
place.  But  the  modern  attitude  was  inhospitable  to 
such  miraculous  events,  and  their  occurrence  was 
widely  denied.  This,  however,  gave  them  all  the 
greater  evidential  value  if  they  were  once  admitted, 
and  there  now  opened  the  classical  period  of  Christian 
apologetics  in  which  the  truth  of  Christianity  was 
proved  wholly  by  prophecy  and  miracle,  supernatural 
phenomena  intended  solely  to  give  the  Christian  Faith 
the  support  of  divine  authority.  By  such  philosophers 
as  John  Locke  and  Samuel  Clarke,  and  by  such  the- 
ologians as  Archbishop  Tillotson,  William  Paley,  and 
many  others,  the  argument  was  elaborated  and  be- 
came the  triumphant  vindication  of  the  divine  claims 
of  the  Christian  system. 

The  attack  upon  miracles,  which  naturally  grew  more 
and  more  active  as  the  apologetic  from  them  was  in- 
creasingly emphasized,  came  curiously  enough  not 
chiefly  from  scientists  but  from  men  who  were  op- 
posed to  Christianity  or  were  critics  of  it  on  other 
grounds  altogether.  The  scientists  of  the  period  as 
a  rule  were  too  much  engrossed  in  other  things,  or 
were  too  lacking  in  historic  imagination,  to  concern 
themselves  with  the  Biblical  miracles  and  their  im- 
plications. It  is  the  growth  of  historic  imagination  in 
our  own  day  that  has  done  as  much  as  anything  else 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  39 

to  make  the  belief  in  Biblical  miracles  difficult  to  those 
who  have  long  since  ceased  to  believe  in  any  others. 

The  attack  upon  miracles  made  it  incumbent  upon 
Christian  apologists  to  defend  them,  and  this  they  did 
in  various  ways,  the  argument  for  Christianity  being 
pushed  back  from  an  argument  for  its  truth  based 
upon  the  miracles  to  an  argument  for  the  miracles 
themselves.  Various  lines  of  defense  were  adopted. 
It  was  claimed,  as  for  instance  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury by  Paley,  and  in  the  nineteenth  by  Mozley,  that 
man's  need  of  a  divine  revelation  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  authenticating  it  in  any  way  except  by  mira- 
cles raised  a  strong  presumption  in  their  favor.  But 
the  growing  belief  that  divine  power  is  more  clearly 
revealed  in  order  than  in  disorder,  in  law  than  in  ex- 
ceptions to  it,  gradually  took  the  force  out  of  this 
supposition. 

Again  it  was  contended,  as  for  instance  by  Leibnitz 
in  the  seventeenth  century  and  by  Butler  in  the  eigh- 
teenth, that  miracles  are  manifestations  of  a  higher 
law  and  hence  entirely  natural.  But  the  difficulty  with 
this  contention  was  that  the  miracles  themselves  were 
the  only  evidence  of  such  a  higher  law. 

Still  again  it  was  claimed  that  Jesus  was  a  super- 
natural being  and  hence  might  be  expected  to  work 
miracles,  or  that  Christianity  is  a  supernatural  sys- 
tem and  therefore  it  might  be  anticipated  that  mira- 
cles would  be  wrought  in  connection  with  it.  In  other 
words,  Christ  and  Christianity  were  now  made  to  sup- 
port the  miracles  instead  of  being  sustained  by  them. 
This  is  a  very  common  attitude  among  Christians  to- 


40  THE   RISE    OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

day.  Few  make  miracles  the  principal  basis  of  their 
faith,  but  multitudes  accept  unquestioningly  the  mira- 
cles recorded  in  the  Bible  because  of  their  belief  in 
the  divine  character  of  the  Christian  religion.  The 
old  apologetic  basis  has  thus  shifted  completely. 
Whereas  a  century  and  more  ago  the  miracles  were 
means  to  faith,  now  they  have  become  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  faith  and  the  Christian  apologist  is  obliged 
to  defend  them  as  elements  in  a  system  otherwise  ac- 
credited instead  of  employing  them  in  its  support. 

Still  more  common,  or  at  any  rate  increasingly  com- 
mon to-day  both  within  and  without  the  Christian 
Church,  is  the  tendency  to  believe  that  Jesus  did  won- 
derful things  beyond  the  power  of  most  men,  but  to 
interpret  his  deeds  in  a  wholly  natural  way.  This  is 
an  outgrowth  of  the  rationalistic  practice  common  in 
the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  of  re- 
ducing all  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment to  ordinary  events  and  denuding  them  altogether 
of  their  extraordinary  character. 

This  method  has  been  justly  discredited.  Modern 
men,  it  is  true,  widely  share  the  rationalistic  belief  that 
Jesus'  deeds  were  wholly  natural,  but  the  limits  of  the 
natural  have  been  vastly  extended.  Cultured  minds 
of  to-day  are  far  more  hospitable  to  accounts  of  ex- 
traordinary occurrences  than  were  the  intellectual 
classes  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Telepathy,  hypno- 
tism, mind  cure — the  countless  evidences  of  the  influ- 
ence of  mind  over  body  which  modern  psychology  and 
medicine  have  gathered — make  it  quite  possible  to  be- 
lieve that  Jesus  did  many  of  the  wonderful  deeds  re- 


NATURAL   SCIENCE  4I 

corded  of  him  by  the  use  of  means  now  at  least  par-  ] 
tially  understood,  as  they  were  not  then,  and  so  now  \ 
interpreted  naturally  as  they  were  once  interpreted  su- 
pernaturally.     This  represents  a  great  advance  upon 
the  older  rationalism,  but  it  is  no  less  fatal  to  the  ar- 
gument from  miracles. 

Thus  Christian  apologists  have  been  driven  succes- 
sively from  position  to  position  and  have  been  forced 
generally  to  abandon  the  contention  upon  which  they 
staked  everything  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

Meanwhile  the  tendency  referred  to  above  to  push  /itJ^  \ 
God  back  to  the  beginning  of  things  and  to  dispense 
with  his  activity  in  the  universe  since  its  creation  did 
not  stop  there,  but  resulted  quite  naturally  in  scepti- 
cisjn  and  atheism.  As  evidences  of  supernatural  in- 
tervention grew  fewer,  the  question  naturally  sug- 
gested itself  whether,  if  the  universe  be  self-sustaining, 
it  may  not  have  been  self -originating  as  well.  In 
answer  to  this  question  theists  appealed  to  the  solar 
system,  about  which  so  much  had  been  learned  in  re- 
cent generations,  as  the  supreme  evidence  of  the  crea- 
tive activity  and  adaptive  intelligence  of  God.  But 
by  Kant  and  Laplace,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  nebular  hypothesis  was  propounded, 
and  was  widely  recognized  as  supplying  a  satisfac- 
tory explanation  of  the  present  form  of  the  cosmos 
without  recourse  to  supernatural  agency;  and  though 
the  faith  of  Christians  may  not  have  been  generally 
affected,  it  became  difficult  for  scientists  to  pin  their 
belief  in  God  upon  the  structure  of  the  solar  system. 

There  was  still  left  support  for  belief  in  the  super- 


42  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

natural  in  the  wonderful  evidences  of  intelligent  pur- 
pose displayed  in  the  infinitely  varied  adaptations  of 
the  animal  and  vegetable  world,  and  in  the  existence 
of  the  great  multiplicity  of  species  which  could  be 
accounted  for  only  by  independent  creation.  This  line 
of  argument,  whose  cogency  was  greatly  strengthened 
in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  by  the  rap- 
idly increasing  knowledge  of  the  world  of  nature,  was 
set  forth  in  classical  form  in  Paley's  "Natural  The- 
ology," published  in  1799,  and  a  generation  and  more 
later  in  the  famous  Bridgewater  treatises.  Materi- 
alistic philosophy  replied  that  matter  itself  is  possessed 
of  sufficient  potency  to  account  for  all  the  facts,  and 
the  idea  of  evolution  favored  the  same  contention. 
Science  finally  came  to  the  support  of  philosophical 
speculation  through  the  discovery  of  actual  transmu- 
tations of  species  under  influences  which  might  con- 
ceivably be  universally  operative.  Darwin's  theory  of 
evolution  by  natural  selection  has  not  been  established 
on  any  such  scale  as  to  justify  the  sweeping  conclu- 
sions widely  drawn  from  it,  but  it  has  at  any  rate 
served  to  destroy  completely  for  multitudes  of  minds 
the  cogency  of  the  traditional  theistic  argument  from 
design,  and  so  has  struck  one  more  blow  at  the  old 
view  of  the  relation  between  nature  and  the  super- 
natural. Belief  in  God  is  not  impossible  to  those  who 
accept  the  theory  of  evolution  in  its  Darwinian  or  any 
other  form.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  positive  rea- 
sons for  believing  in  him  drawn  from  the  existence  of 
multitudinous  species  and  from  the  evidences  of  adap- 
tation in  the  world  of  physical  life  have  largely  broken 


NATURAL  SCIENCE  43 

down.  If  not  atheism  at  least  a^osticism  is  a  not 
unnatural  consequence.  If  one  is  not  justified  in  de- 
nying the  existence  of  God — at  least  one  appears  from 
this  point  of  view  to  have  lost  all  ground  for  assert- 
ing it. 

Thus  the  modem  view  of  the  world,  already  cur- 
rent in  the  eighteenth  century  and  growing  more 
widely  current  ever  since,  had  come  to  be  such  that 
God  seemed  unnecessary  to  explain  the  world.  Step 
by  step  natural  forces  had  been  substituted  for  super- 
natural until  there  seemed  no  place  left  for  God  and 
no  evidences  of  his  activity  anywhere.  That  faith  in 
God  has  been  widely  lost  because  of  this  conviction 
of  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  physical  universe  is  ap- 
parent to  everybody.  Multitudes  in  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  and  multitudes  in  our  own  day 
have  ceased  to  believe  in  God  just  because  they  see 
no  need  of  him  to  account  for  the  visible  world  which 
is  permeated  with  material  energy  and  bound  together 
by  the  iron  bond  of  causal  necessity.  If  this  were  the 
end  of  the  story,  it  would  be  a  lamentable  tale  indeed. 
If  the  net  result  of  the  scientific  development  of  re- 
cent centuries  were  the  permanent  destruction  of  the 
world's  faith  in  God,  one  might  mourn  the  outcome 
and  perhaps  even  venture  to  wish,  vain  though  the 
wish  were,  that  modern  science  had  never  been,  and 
that  the  world  could  return  to  the  old-fashioned  faith 
of  the  fathers.  But  this  is  not  the  end  of  the  story. 
The  account  that  has  been  given  of  the  negations  of 
the  modern  age  must  be  followed  by  an  account  of  its 
affirmations.     For  but  one  aspect  of  the  process  of 


44  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

thought  has  been  sketched  in  this  chapter.  Only  those 
forces  have  been  exhibited  which  led  to  religious  doubt 
and  denial.  It  will  be  necessary  also  to  show  the  in- 
fluences which  have  made  for  faith  and  to  trace  the 
process  of  its  recovery. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE    CRITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  when  the 
reaHsm  of  an  earher  day  had  given  way  to  nominaHsm, 
theologians  found  it  impossible  to  prove  the  ration- 
ality of  Christian  dogma,  as  the  great  medieval  school- 
men had  done,  and  were  forced  to  fall  back  upon  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  Roman  Church  as  the  sole 
ground  of  faith.  This,  however,  was  not  a  permanently 
tenable  position  for  thinking  men,  particularly  when 
confidence  in  the  Church's  infallibility  was  under- 
mined by  the  Protestant  Reformation.  Some  other 
basis  of  assurance  must  be  discovered. 

The  French  philosopher  Descartes  found  this  basis 
in  self-consciousness,  and  thus  became  the  father  of 
modern  philosophical  rationalism.  In  his  search  for 
certainty  he  began  by  doubting  everything.  One  thing, 
however,  remains  certain,  and  that  is  the  thinking 
self.  I  may  doubt  the  existence  of  everything  else, 
but  I  cannot  doubt  the  existence  of  myself  who  doubts. 
In  the  very  act  of  doubting  my  own  existence  is  im- 
mediately given.  From  this  absolute  assurance  of  our 
own  reality  as  thinking  selves  Descartes  then  derived 
a  criterion  by  which  we  may  test  all  reality.  What- 
ever we  know  with  the  same  clearness  and  distinctness 

45 


46  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

with  which  we  know  our  own  existence,  we  may  rely 
upon  as  true.  Descartes  was  a  thoroughgoing  ra- 
tionaHst,  not  a  sceptic,  and  he  believed  that  so  long 
as  the  intellect  is  true  to  itself  and  accepts  only  what 
is  perfectly  clear  and  distinct,  it  cannot  err.  He  began 
as  a  mathematician,  and  it  was  his  ambition  to  in- 
troduce into  philosophy  the  same  clearness  and  self- 
evidence  as  marked  the  mathematical  sciences.  What 
we  cannot  prove  with  equal  certainty  cannot  be  relied 
upon  as  true.  Complete  certainty  (and  with  less  than 
this  Descartes  was  not  satisfied)  can  be  attained  by 
the  method  of  deduction  alone.  Only  as  we  start  with 
some  principle  whose  truth  is  axiomatic,  and  deduce 
from  it  the  necessary  consequences,  as  in  mathematics, 
can  we  reach  what  we  are  seeking.  The  method  of 
induction  but  piles  phenomenon  upon  phenomenon 
with  no  way  of  guaranteeing  us  against  the  errors  of 
the  senses. 

Some  of  our  ideas  are  inborn;  others,  and  the  ma- 
jority of  them,  have  been  drawn  from  experience  or 
handed  down  to  us  by  tradition.  The  inborn  ideas 
are  philosophically  the  most  important,  and  only  they 
can  be  relied  upon  because  free  from  the  corrupting 
influence  of  the  senses  on  the  one  hand  and  of  custom 
and  prejudice  on  the  other.  Among  our  inborn  ideas 
there  is  none  clearer  and  more  distinct  than  that  of 
an  infinite  and  perfect  Being  with  whom  we  implicitly 
or  explicitly  contrast  ourselves  when  we  are  conscious 
of  our  own  finiteness  and  imperfection.  This  idea 
cannot  be  our  own  creation,  nor  arise  out  of  our  own 
experience  or  that  of  anyone  else,  for  the  effect  cannot 


THE   CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  47 

be  greater  than  the  cause,  and  we  are  but  finite  while 
the  idea  is  infinite.  It  must  have  come  from  an  in- 
finite Being  and  must  have  been  implanted  in  us  by 
him.  Thus  Descartes  reaches  the  assurance  that  such 
a  Being  exists.  This  assurance  he  makes  doubly  sure 
by  the  use  of  Anselm's  famous  ontological  argument. 
We  have  an  idea  of  the  most  perfect  of  all  beings. 
But  existence  is  itself  an  attribute  of  perfection;  a 
being  who  exists  in  reality  is  more  perfect  than  the 
same  being  existing  only  in  thought.  Consequently 
the  most  perfect  being  of  whom  we  think  must  exist; 
he  cannot  be  thought  of  as  non-existent.  The  ontologi- 
cal argument,  whether  in  the  hands  of  Descartes  or 
of  Anselm,  is  genuinely  characteristic  of  philosophical 
rationalism  which  appears  in  it  in  purest  form  and 
with  least  admixture  of  empiricism. 

The  existence  of  a  perfect  being,  the  assurance  of 
which  is  reached  in  the  ways  indicated,  is  then  used 
by  Descartes  to  guarantee  the  reality  of  an  external 
world.  We  cannot  be  immediately  certain  of  the  ex- 
istence of  such  a  world  or  even  of  our  own  bodies, 
for  our  senses  may  deceive  us,  as  they  often  do,  for 
instance  in  dreams,  or  an  evil  demon  may  take  de- 
light in  giving  us  our  impressions  of  an  outer  world 
when  nothing  of  the  kind  exists.  But  if  there  be  a 
perfect  being,  God,  who  has  given  us  an  idea  of  him- 
self, we  may  be  assured  that  our  idea  of  an  external 
world,  which  is  common  to  all  the  race,  cannot  be 
wholly  false.  His  truthfulness  forbids  the  assump- 
tion that  he  can  deceive  us  all  or  permit  us  all  to  be 
deceived  in  such  a  matter.     Our  senses  may  play  us 


48  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

false  in  many  ways;  sense  perception  is  not  the  sure 
road  to  truth  that  pure  thought  is;  and  so  we  may 
assign  to  objects  many  qualities  which  they  do  not 
really  possess.  But  when  we  have  abstracted  color, 
sound,  taste,  smell,  and  all  that  may  conceivably  have 
been  contributed  by  the  senses,  there  remains  one 
necessary  quality,  namely  extension,  which  cannot  even 
be  thought  away  from  bodies  without  annihilating 
them.  This,  then,  is  the  essential  quality  of  bodies,  as 
thought,  which  for  Descartes  included  feeling  and 
willing,  is  the  essential  quality  of  minds. 

The  infinite  being  Descartes  called  substance,  defin- 
ing substance  as  that  which  depends  upon  nothing  else 
for  its  existence.  Mind  and  matter  are  substances  in 
a  subordinate  sense  in  that  they  need  nothing  but  God 
that  they  may  exist.  They  depend  for  their  reality 
neither  upon  each  other  nor  upon  anything  else  save 
God.  They  are  entirely  independent  of  one  another 
and  wholly  unlike  in  nature.  They  cannot  affect  or 
influence  or  communicate  with  each  other  except 
through  God,  who  created  them  both.  In  his  natural 
philosophy  Descartes  gave  a  purely  mechanical  ac- 
count of  the  physical  universe.  Teleological  explana- 
tions have  no  place  in  connection  with  it;  it  must  be 
conceived  as  controlled  wholly  by  mechanical  laws. 
Mind  on  the  other  hand  he  represented  in  an  entirely 
different  way  as  free  and  independent  of  all  mechanical 
causation. 

To  Descartes's  greatest  disciple,  Spinoza,  the  exist- 
ence of  God  was  the  one  sure  thing,  the  starting  point 
of  all  his  thinking.     He  was  filled  with  all  the  mys- 


THE    CRITICAL    PHILOSOPHY  49 

tic's  love  of  God  and  dominated  by  the  reality  of  his 
being.  He  therefore  had  no  need  of  seeking  proofs 
of  God's  existence  as  Descartes  had,  but  he  took  over 
from  Descartes  his  definition  of  substance  and  also 
his  method  of  mathematical  deduction.  Interpreting 
the  former  strictly,  he  reached  the  conclusion  that 
there  is  but  one  substance  in  the  universe,  but  one 
being,  God,  which  needs  nothing  else  for  its  existence, 
and  of  this  thought  and  extension  are  but  attributes. 
The  mathematical  method  he  then  employed  in  order 
to  deduce  from  the  one  substance  all  reality.  As  all 
things  have  come  out  of  the  being  of  God,  by  strict  de- 
duction we  may  pass  from  the  idea  of  God  to  the  ideas 
of  all  things,  for  all  of  them  must  be  included  therein. 
The  attributes  of  thought  and  extension  are  indepen- 
dent but  completely  parallel  to  each  other.  By  the 
same  necessity  by  which  one  individual  or  mode  of 
existence  follows  another  within  the  sphere  of  matter 
the  individuals  follow  each  other  within  the  sphere  of 
mind.  The  same  complete  determinism  controls  them 
both.  There  is  no  more  freedom  in  the  world  of  spirit 
than  in  that  of  nature.  Nor  is  there  room  for  the 
exercise  of  freedom  in  God.  All  things  follow  of 
necessity  from  the  nature  of  the  infinite  substance. 
The  world  is  not  the  result  of  a  free  creative  act  on 
God's  part.  It  is  involved  in  the  very  nature  of  God 
as  the  angles  of  a  triangle  are  involved  in  the  nature 
of  a  triangle.  All  teleological  explanations  of  the 
spiritual  and  ethical  world,  as  well  as  of  the  material, 
are  therefore  entirely  out  of  place. 

In  the  system  of  Spinoza  the  method  of  mathemati- 


so  THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

cal  deduction  found  its  most  rigorous  application 
within  the  metaphysical  and  ethical  spheres,  and  philo- 
sophical rationalism  its  most  consistent  and  extreme 
expression. 

Spinoza's  younger  contemporary,  the  German  phil- 
^  osopher  and  statesman  Leibnitz,  developed  Descartes's 
rationalism  along  altogether  different  lines.  While 
Spinoza  was  the  extremest  of  monists,  Leibnitz  was 
a  thoroughgoing  pluralist,  assuming  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  independent  substances,  or  monads,  which  make 
up  the  world  of  nature  and  spirit.  Like  Descartes  and 
Spinoza,  Leibnitz  was  a  genuine  rationalist,  but  he 
felt  the  influence  also  of  empiricism,  and  in  his  re- 
ligious philosophy  he  employed  both  a  priori  and  em- 
pirical proofs  of  the  divine  existence.  In  addition  to 
the  ontological  argument  of  Anselm  and  Descartes, 
he  appealed  also  to  the  cosmological  argument  from 
contingent  to  necessary  being.  A  necessary  being  is 
that  which  has  the  ground  of  its  existence  in  itself ;  a 
contingent  being  has  the  ground  of  its  existence  in  an- 
other. If  anything  exists,  there  must  be  something 
which  exists  necessarily,  or  which  has  the  ground  of 
existence  in  itself  alone;  otherwise  we  are  left  with 
an  infinite  regress  from  contingent  being  to  contingent 
being,  each  of  which  points  us  to  another  in  explana- 
tion of  its  own  existence.  But  the  most  compelling 
evidence  for  God  Leibnitz  found  in  the  preestablished 
harmony,  whereby  the  innumerable  independent 
monads  are  assigned  each  his  particular  place  in  the 
universe  and  form  a  harmonious  system  of  cooperating 
forces.   Such  a  preestablished  harmony,  which  con- 


THE    CRITICAL    PHILOSOPHY  5 1 

stituted  one  of  the  fundamental  tenets  of  Leibnitz's 
philosophy,  was  conceivable  only  if  due  ultimately  to 
an  infinitely  wise  being,  or  God. 

Ferdinand  Christian  Wolff,  the  systematizer  and 
popularizer  of  Leibnitz's  philosophy,  carried  the  com- 
bination of  rationalism  and  empiricism  still  further. 
He  lost  sight  of  some  of  Leibnitz's  most  profound 
ideas,  and  the  dogmatic  system  which  he  elaborated 
in  great  detail  and  with  extraordinary  diligence  was 
relatively  a  superficial  and  barren  affair,  but  his  in- 
fluence was  tremendous,  and  the  Leibnitz-Wolffian 
philosophy,  as  it  was  called,  was  completely  dominant 
in  Germany  until  shattered  by  the  criticism  of  Kant. 

Wolff,  too,  was  a  Cartesian  rationalist,  believing 
that  certainty  can  be  attained  only  by  the  method  of 
deduction,  but  he  made  a  large  place  for  empiricism 
in  teaching  that  what  the  reason  proves  with  abso- 
lute assurance  touching  the  phenomenal  world  the 
senses  discover  independently  by  immediate  percep- 
tion. The  task  of  philosophy  is  to  show  the  logical 
necessity  of  the  given  facts  and  so  to  supply  a  rational 
explanation  of  them.  Wolff's  great  aim  was  clear- 
ness and  intelligibility.  Philosophy  must  reach  distinct 
and  definite  conclusions.  Nothing  is  to  be  accepted 
as  true  unless  it  can  be  demonstrated  as  necessary  in 
the  very  nature  of  things,  or  unless  we  can  discover 
a  sufficient  ground  for  it  in  observed  facts.  Philosophy 
has  to  do  with  the  whole  realm  of  the  possible,  but 
within  this  realm  only  that  is  real  which  can  be  clearly 
shown  to  be  such.    The  understanding  is  the  only  road 


y 


52  THE    RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

to  truth.  Not  instinct,  or  intuition,  or  faith  is  to  be 
reHed  upon,  but  syllogistic  reasoning  proceeding  in  or- 
derly fashion  from  premise  to  conclusion. 

In  his  religious  philosophy,  or  natural  religion, 
Wolff  reproduced  the  ontological  and  cosmological 
proofs  of  the  divine  existence,  laying  particular  stress 
in  connection  with  the  latter  upon  the  fact  that  the 
world,  composed  of  countless  diverse  elements  as  it 
is,  and  in  a  constant  process  of  change,  cannot  have 
the  ground  of  its  existence  in  itself,  but  only  in  an- 
other. And  he  claimed  even  greater  cogency  for  both 
these  proofs  than  Leibnitz  had  done,  for  they  show 
the  existence  of  God  to  be  a  necessary  truth  of  the 
reason. 

He  also  added  the  teleological  or  physico-theologi- 
cal  argument,  according  to  which  the  countless  evi- 
dences of  adaptation  and  design  in  the  world  point 
to  an  intelligent  creator.  This  line  of  argument  was 
especially  popular  in  England,  where  the  empiric 
method  was  in  control.  Like  many  English  theo- 
logians of  his  own  and  later  days,  Wolff  carried  the 
argument  to  ridiculous  lengths,  endeavoring  to  show 
how  everything  was  created  by  God  for  some  particu- 
lar purpose,  commonly  for  the  good  of  man  and  to 
promote  his  development.^ 

The  earth  was  made  as  it  is  in  order  that  it  might 
be  inhabited.  In  it  ''man  finds  everything  he  needs 
for  nourishment,  clothing,  and  shelter,  for  science  and 

^In  his  Verniinftige  Gedanken  von  den  Absichten  der  natiir- 
lichen  Dinge   (1723). 


THE   CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  53 

art,  and  for  the  performance  of  his  moral  and  political 
duties."  ^  And  as  the  earth  was  made  by  God  that  it 
might  be  inhabited  by  men  and  beasts,  we  may  easily 
guess  that  he  has  in  like  manner  prepared  the  other 
planets  for  their  dwelling  places."  ^  The  sun  shines 
that  man  may  be  able  to  do  his  work  more  easily  and 
cheaply  than  would  be  possible  in  the  darkness. 
^'Whoever  would  fully  realize  this  advantage  brought 
us  by  the  sun  may  think  how  it  would  be  if  even  for 
a  single  month  it  were  night  and  not  day.  He  will 
then  be  sufficiently  convinced  by  his  own  experience, 
particularly  if  he  has  much  to  do  on  the  street  or  in 
the  fields."  3 

The  planets  are  far  apart  that  they  may  not  throw 
each  other  into  shadow  and  thus  prevent  their  receiv- 
ing adequate  light  and  heat,  and  for  this  reason  the 
larger  they  are  the  more  widely  they  are  separated."* 
Although  storms  do  great  damage  they  were  not  in- 
tended for  this  purpose  alone,  but  also  to  cool  and 
purify  the  air  we  breathe;^  and  water  was  made 
chiefly  that  it  might  serve  as  a  drink  for  men  and 
beasts.  'Though  men  make  artificial  drinks  they  can- 
not do  without  water.  Beer  is  brewed  from  water  and 
malt,  and  it  is  the  water  that  quenches  the  thirst. 
Wine  which  is  prepared  from  grapes  could  not  have 
grown  without  water,  and  it  is  the  same  with  the 

^Ibid.,  second  edition  (1726),  p.  97. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  98- 
•  Ibid.,  p.  75. 
*Ibid.,  p.  141. 
•Ibid.,  p.  321. 


54  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

drinks  which  are  made  in  England  and  elsewhere  out 
of  fruit."  1 

Occasionally  Wolff  can  discover  no  use  for  this  or 
that  phenomenon,  as  for  instance  for  the  turning  of  the 
planets  on  their  axes,  and  for  the  rings  of  Saturn,  but 
in  such  cases  he  falls  back  upon  the  comforting  re- 
flection that  God  is  great  and  his  ways  unfathomable.^ 

In  his  Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion,  com- 
pleted in  1 75 1  but  not  published  until  after  his  death 
in  1779,  the  English  philosopher  David  Hume  criti- 
cized the  cosmological  and  teleological  proofs  from 
the  point  of  view  of  empiricism.  In  reply  to  the  cos- 
mological argument  he  urged  that  it  is  as  easy  to 
ascribe  self-existence  to  the  universe  itself  as  to  its 
cause.  There  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
why  the  latter  should  be  upon  a  different  level  from 
the  former  in  this  respect.  The  cause  of  the  universe 
requires  a  cause  as  much  as  the  universe  itself,  and 
so  we  are  simply  driven  further  and  further  back  with- 
out ever  reaching  a  goal.  Against  the  teleological  ar- 
gument he  urged  that  we  have  no  right  to  argue  from 
the  analogy  of  a  finite  cause  to  the  cause  of  the  uni- 
verse and  assume  a  mind  back  of  it,  for  the  universe 
is  a  unique  effect.  Order  may  belong  to  matter  as 
well  as  to  mind,  and  hence  the  existence  of  an  orderly 
world  is  no  proof  that  it  was  made  by  an  intelligent 
being.  If  we  are  to  argue  from  analogy  at  all,  we 
may  reason  from  the  resemblance  of  the  world  to  an 
animal  or  plant,  and  conclude  that  it  is  a  living  being 

"  Ibid.,  p.  354 
'Ibid,  p.  150. 


THE   CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  55 

and  God  its  soul.  Or  if  we  insist  on  seeking  a  cause 
outside  the  world,  we  must  remember  that  from  a 
finite  world  we  can  deduce  at  best  only  a  finite  cause. 
Assuming  that  the  universe  had  an  author  he  may 
have  been  a  bungler,  or  a  God  since  dead,  or  a  male 
and  female  God,  or  a  multiplicity  of  Gods.  He  may 
have  been  perfectly  good,  or  perfectly  evil,  or  a  mix- 
ture of  good  and  evil,  or  morally  quite  indifferent,  the 
last  hypothesis  being  the  most  probable. 

A  still  more  severe  attack  upon  the  traditional  the- 
istic  proofs,  including  the  ontological,  as  well  as  the 
cosmological  and  teleological,  was  made  by  the  Ger- 
man philosopher  Kant,  this  time  from  the  point  of 
view  of  philosophical  rationalism.  In  his  Kritik  der 
reinen  Vernunft,  published  in  1781,  only  two  years 
after  Hume's  Dialogues,  Kant  says : 

"There  are  only  three  possible  ways  of  proving  the 
existence  of  God  by  the  speculative  reason  .  .  .  The 
first  is  the  physico-theological,  the  second  the  cosmo- 
logical, the  third  the  ontological.  There  are  no  more, 
and  there  can  be  no  more.  I  shall  show  that  the  rea- 
son can  accomplish  as  little  in  the  one  way  (the  em- 
pirical) as  in  the  other  (the  transcendental),  and  that 
it  spreads  its  wings  in  vain  in  the  effort  to  rise  above 
the  world  of  sense  by  the  mere  power  of  specula- 
tion." ^ 

Beginning  with  the  ontological  argument,  he  shows 

that  the  idea  of  the  most  perfect  being  does  not  in- 

*  Kant's    S'dmmtliche    Werke    (in   the   Philosophische   Biblio- 
thek),  Vol.  I,  p.  510  fif. 


56  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

volve  its  necessary  existence,  because  existence  is  not 
an  attribute  or  predicate,  the  omission  of  which  makes 
our  imagined  being  less  perfect  than  it  would  otherwise 
be.  To  assert  the  existence  of  a  thing  is  simply  to 
posit  it  with  all  the  attributes  which  go  to  constitute 
the  idea  of  it.  "A  hundred  real  dollars  contain  not 
a  bit  more  than  a  hundred  possible  ones.  For  since 
the  latter  signify  the  concept,  the  former  the  object 
actually  existing,  my  concept,  in  case  real  dollars  con- 
tained more  than  possibles  ones,  would  not  express 
the  entire  object  and  hence  would  not  be  a  correct  con- 
cept. .  .  .  And  so  when  I  think  of  a  thing  and  give  it 
any  sort  of  predicates,  and  as  many  of  them  as  I  please, 
until  it  is  completely  defined,  nothing  at  all  is  added  to 
it,  if  I  add  that  it  exists.  For  otherwise  not  the  same 
thing  which  I  had  in  my  mind  would  exist,  but  some- 
thing more,  and  I  could  not  say  that  exactly  the  ob- 
ject of  my  thought  existed."  ^  "And  so  to  try  to 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  a  supreme  being  by  the 
celebrated  ontological  (Cartesian)  proof  from  the 
mere  idea  of  such  a  being,  is  to  waste  time  and 
strength,  and  a  man  can  as  little  increase  his  knowl- 
edge of  reality  from  mere  ideas  as  a  merchant  can 
increase  his  property  by  adding  ciphers  to  the  written 
statement  of  his  assets."  ^ 

Turning  to  the  cosmological  proof  Kant  shows  that 
so  far  as  it  is  not  merely  another  form  of  the  ontologi- 
cal argument  from  the  idea  of  a  necessary  being  to 

*Ibid.,  p.  517. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  519. 


THE   CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  57 

its  existence,  it  is  the  unwarranted  objectifying  of  a 
mere  regulative  principle  of  the  understanding.  We 
may  be  driven  to  assume  a  necessary  existence  as  the 
ground  of  all  contingent  existence,  but  we  can  no- 
where stoo  in  our  enumeration  of  the  causal  series 
and  say  that  this  is  original  and  uncaused. 

"If  I  am  compelled  to  assume  that  existing  things 
presuppose  something  necessary,  but  am  not  author- 
ized to  regard  any  particular  thing  as  in  itself  neces- 
sary, it  follows  unavoidably  that  necessity  and  contin- 
gency do  not  belong  to  things  themselves,  for  other- 
wise a  contradiction  would  be  involved.  Consequently 
neither  proposition  is  objective,  but  both  can  be  at  any 
rate  only  subjective  principles  of  the  reason,  requiring 
us  on  the  one  hand  to  seek  something  necessary  as  the 
presupposition  of  all  that  exists,  or,  in  other  words, 
never  to  stop  short  of  an  a  priori  completed  explana- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  never  to  hope  to  attain  such  a 
completion,  that  is,  never  to  regard  an  empiric  fact  as 
unconditioned  and  refrain  from  looking  for  its 
cause."  ^  "The  unconditioned  necessity  which  we  so 
much  need  as  the  final  support  of  all  things  is  a  verita- 
ble abyss  for  the  human  reason.  .  .  .  We  cannot 
avoid  the  thought,  and  yet  we  cannot  endure  it,  that 
a  being  which  we  picture  as  the  highest  of  all  possible 
beings  should  say  to  itself :  *I  am  from  eternity  to 
eternity;  beside  Me  there  is  nothing  except  what  My 
Will  has  produced ;  but  whence  then  do  I  come?'  Here 
everything  sinks  under  us,  and  the  greatest  perfection 
^  Ibid.,  p.  529. 


58  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

like  the  smallest  floats  without  an  anchor  before  the 
speculative  reason  which  finds  no  trouble  in  letting  the 
one  as  well  as  the  other  vanish  altogether."  ^ 

The  teleological  argument  Kant  treats  with  greater 
respect  as  the  oldest  and  clearest  of  all  and  the  one 
most  easily  comprehended  by  the  common  man.  It 
actually  does  serve  to  produce  belief  in  a  divine  crea- 
tor, and  to  try  to  undermine  its  influence  would  be  a 
sorry  business.  At  the  same  time  he  shows  that  it 
does  not  accomplish  what  is  claimed  for  it,  since  it 
gives  us  at  best  only  a  designer,  not  a  creator,  and 
only  a  finite  and  imperfect  one  at  that;  and,  as  it  is 
based  upon  a  questionable  analogy — the  analogy  of 
man-made  things — it  cannot  carry  us  beyond  mere 
probability.  Strict  proof,  indeed,  or  logical  certainty 
of  the  existence  of  a  divine  being  can  be  attained  only 
by  the  ontological  argument,  and  the  futility  of  that 
he  has  already  shown. 

In  a  general  criticism  of  the  effort  to  base  theology 
upon  speculative  reason,  he  adds,  in  full  agreement 
with  the  principles  of  his  critical  philosophy : 

"The  proposition  that  every  empiric  event  has  a 
cause  is  a  principle  of  natural  science,  not  of  specula- 
tive philosophy.  For  if,  leaving  out  of  sight  all  em- 
pirical facts,  we  try  to  apply  a  principle  which  contains 
the  condition  of  possible  experience  to  contingent 
existence  in  general,  we  have  no  justification  for  sup- 
posing that  we  can  pass  from  something  given  to 
*Ibid.,  p.  527. 


r 

THE   CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  59 

something  entirely  different  which  we  call  its  cause. 
Indeed  in  such  a  mere  speculative  use  of  it  the  very 
idea  of  cause,  like  that  of  contingency,  loses  all  the 
meaning  which  it  has  in  connection  with  concrete 
events.  If  now  from  the  existence  of  things  in  the 
world  we  conclude  that  they  have  a  cause,  this  conclu- 
sion belongs  not  to  the  natural  but  to  the  speculative 
use  of  the  reason.  For  by  the  former  not  the  things 
themselves  but  only  what  happens,  hence  only  their 
states  as  empirically  contingent  are  referred  to  a  cause. 
That  substance  itself  (or  matter)  has  a  contingent 
existence  could  be  a  conclusion  of  the  speculative  rea- 
son alone.  But  also,  if  I  were  thinking  only  of  the 
form  of  the  world,  of  its  connections  and  changes, 
and  wanted  to  deduce  therefrom  a  cause  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  the  world,  this  again  would  be  a  judgment 
of  the  mere  speculative  reason,  for  such  a  cause  could 
not  be  the  object  of  possible  experience.  The  principle 
of  causality,  which  has  application  only  within  the 
field  of  experience  and  outside  of  it  is  useless  and  even 
meaningless,  would  in  such  a  case  be  employed  in 
an  entirely  illegitimate  manner.  I  assert  then  that  all 
the  attempts  at  a  mere  speculative  use  of  the  reason  in 
the  field  of  theology  are  entirely  fruitless  and  in  their 
very  nature  null  and  void."  ^ 

Thus,  both  by  empiricism  and  by  philosophical  Ra- 
tionalism, in  the  persons  of  their  greatest  exponents, 
the  possibility  of  demonstrating  the  existence  of  God 
was  denied,  and  philosophy  was  at  one  with  natural 

*  Ibid.,  p.  543.    Compare  also  his  Kritik  der  Urteilskraft,  §  84  ff . 


6o  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

science  in  closing  the  traditional  roads  to  God,  whether 
from  the  world  of  nature  or  the  world  of  ideas.  Un- 
less some  other  way  of  reaching  the  assurance  of  the 
divine  existence  were  discovered,  complete  scepticism 
must  be  the  ultimate  result  for  all  thinking  men.  Kant 
himself  was  a  theist,  not  an  atheist,  nor  a  sceptic,  but 
the  way  in  which  he  reached  faith,  and  so  rescued 
himself  from  the  negative  results  of  his  own  criticism, 
will  appear  in  a  later  chapter.  Here  I  have  been  con- 
cerned to  show  only  the  disintegrating  effects  of  the 
critical  philosophy. 


BOOK  II 

RECONSTRUCTION 
CHAPTER  V 

THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  RELIGION 

In  the  eighteenth  century  religion  was  commonly 
enslaved,  on  the  one  hand  to  dogma  and  on  the  other 
hand  to  conduct.  The  religious  man,  it  was  generally 
believed,  is  he  who  accepts  certain  truths  and  lives  in 
accordance  therewith.  These  truths  might  be  simply 
the  existence  of  God,  and  of  a  future  life  in  which  the 
righteous  will  be  rewarded  and  the  wicked  punished, 
and  might  demand  consequently  only  a  life  of  virtue, 
or  they  might  include  a  whole  system  of  revealed  the- 
ology and  require  the  performance  of  many  religious 
duties  over  and  above  the  duties  of  natural  morality. 
In  either  case  a  change  of  belief  was  likely  to  prove 
fatal  to  religion.  If  a  man  ceased  to  believe  in  the 
old  system  of  theology,  or,  if  he  ceased  to  believe  in  a 
future  life  of  rewards  and  punishments,  religion  itself 
seemed  emptied  of  all  meaning.  The  situation  of  re- 
ligion was  particularly  precarious  where  the  notion 
prevailed,  as  it  did  generally  among  the  rationalists  of 

6i 


62  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  period,  that  its  sole  function  was  to  promote  virtue 
by  its  sanctions  of  future  reward  and  punishment.  If 
it  came  to  be  beheved  that  men  are  wilHng  and  able  to 
be  virtuous,  without  the  hope  of  reward  or  the  fear 
of  punishment,  all  reason  for  religion  was  gone,  and 
it  might  be  expected  that  it  would  be  abandoned  as 
wholly  superfluous.  In  other  words,  the  more  men 
advanced  in  moral  character  and  strength  the  less  use 
would  they  have  for  religion.  Under  these  circum- 
stances it  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  there  was 
widespread  contempt  for  religion  and  a  widespread 
unwillingness  to  be  known  as  religious,  even  among 
the  best  of  men. 

One  of  the  most  notable  facts  of  modern  religious 
history  has  been  the  emancipation  of  religion  from 
this  condition  of  servitude  and  its  entrance  upon  a 
career  of  freedom  and  independence.  The  conse- 
quence has  been  a  tremendous  gain  in  the  respect  with 
which  religion  is  regarded  by  thinking  men  of  modern 
sympathies. 

The  first  serious  blow  at  the  then  prevailing  view 
that  religion  is  a  mere  means  to  virtue  was  struck  by 
the  philosopher  Kant,  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  his  ethical  writings  he  maintained  that 
conduct  based  upon  ulterior  motives,  whether  the  ex- 
pectation of  advantage  in  this  life  or  in  a  life  to  come, 
was  devoid  of  all  virtue.  Only  wholly  disinterested 
actions,  performed  in  response  to  the  categorical  im- 
perative of  duty,  were  worthy  of  the  name.  Thus, 
according  to  Kant,  religion,  as  commonly  conceived, 
destroyed  virtue  instead  of  promoting  it.     Employed 


THE  EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  63 

as  a  motive  to  virtuous  living  it  made  truly  virtuous 
living  impossible. 

Though  Kant  thus  repudiated  the  traditional  no- 
tion of  religion  as  a  mere  means  to  a  further  end,  his 
own  interpretation  of  its  content  was  not  materially 
different  from  that  of  his  rationalistic  contemporaries. 
Religion  is  the  recognition  of  our  duties  as  the  will  of 
God.  Doing  our  duty  we  are  moral;  recognizing  it 
as  God's  will  we  are  religious.  The  fact  that  it  is 
God's  will  does  not  increase  its  obligation  for  us — re- 
ligion does  not  enhance  the  binding  character  of  mo- 
rality— nor  must  religious  faith  mean  the  substitution 
of  any  other  motive  for  the  categorical  duty  for  duty's 
sake,  or  it  puts  religion  in  place  of  morality,  and  hence 
becomes  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing. 

Thus  religion  was  left  by  Kant  in  a  singularly  em- 
barrassing situation.  It  meant  the  recognition  of 
one's  duty  as  the  will  of  God,  and  yet,  if  this  recogni- 
tion were  allowed  to  promote  the  doing  of  one's  duty, 
the  worth  of  the  latter  was  vitiated  and  its  moral 
quality  destroyed.  The  matter  was  made  all  the  more 
difficult  by  the  fact  that  faith  in  God,  according  to 
Kant,  meant  faith  in  the  ultimate  happiness  of  the 
virtuous,  God  having  formed  the  universe  in  such  a 
way  that  in  the  end  virtue  will  be  rewarded  by  the 
happiness  which  it  deserves.  And  yet  this  faith  must 
not  be  made  a  reason  for  virtue,  or  the  latter  ceases 
to  be  virtue. 

With  the  eudaemonism  which  still  attached  to 
Kant's  view  and  gave  religion  so  insecure  a  footing, 
his  disciple  Fichte  broke  completely.     "The  system," 


64  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

he  says,  "in  which  happiness  is  expected  from  a  su- 
pernatural being,  is  a  system  of  superstition  and  idola- 
try, which  is  as  old  as  human  corruption  and  with  the 
passage  of  time  has  changed  only  its  outer  form. 
Whether  this  supernatural  being  is  a  bone,  or  a 
feather,  or  an  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  omniscient 
creator  of  heaven  and  earth — if  happiness  be  expected 
from  him,  he  is  an  idol."  ^ 

The  poet  Schiller  also  pronounced  the  notion  that 
morality  must  ultimately  be  matched  by  happiness, 
"a  morality  for  slaves,"  and  the  philosopher  Schelling 
found  the  acme  of  immorality  in  the  notion  that  vir- 
tue and  happiness  could  by  any  possibility  be  opposed, 
for  virtue  itself  is  happiness. 

Fichte's  own  religious  faith  differed  from  Kant's 
in  identifying  God  with  the  moral  order  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  good  deed  succeeds  infallibly,  according 
to  Fichte,  because  there  is  a  moral  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, or,  in  other  words,  because  there  is  a  God. 
And  so  we  may  call  Fichte's  religion  ethical  opti- 
mism. To  be  virtuous  is  to  do  one's  duty  without 
regard  to  consequences.  To  be  religious  is  to  have 
the  faith  that  goodness  will  prevail,  that  there  is  a 
moral  order  which  makes  for  the  final  victory  of  the 
right.  One  may  be  moral  and  a  pessimist.  One  can 
be  religious  only  if  one  be  an  optimist.  This  interpre- 
tation of  religion  has  been  very  common  in  modern 
times.     Where  it  prevails  the  connection  of  morality 

^  Apellation  an  das  Publicum;  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  V, 
p.  219  ff. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    RELIGION  6$ 

and  religion  is  still  close,  but  the  former  is  no  longer, 
as  the  rationalists  thought,  a  mere  means  to  the  lat- 
ter, of  worth  only  if  the  moral  character  be  too  feeble 
to  sustain  itself  without  extraneous  support. 

A  still  more  complete  break  with  the  old  notion  of 
the  nature  and  place  of  religion  was  accomplished  by 
the  great  German  theologian  Schleiermacher.  In  his 
famous  Discourses  upon  Religion,  addressed  to  the 
Educated  among  its  Despisers,  published  in  1799, 
with  the  specific  aim  of  commending  religion  to  those 
who  were  out  of  sympathy  with  it,  he  distinguished 
religion  from  dogma  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  con- 
duct on  the  other,  and  provided  it  with  an  independ- 
ent place  and  value  of  its  own.  "Piety,"  he  says, 
"vindicates  for  itself  its  own  sphere  and  its  own  char- 
acter only  by  abandoning  entirely  the  provinces  of 
science  and  practice;  and  when  it  has  raised  itself 
beside  them,  the  whole  field  is  for  the  first  time  com- 
pletely filled  and  human  nature  perfected.  Religion 
reveals  itself  as  the  necessary  and  indispensable  third, 
as  the  natural  complement  of  knowledge  and  conduct, 
not  inferior  to  them  in  worth  and  dignity."  ^  Reli- 
gion, according  to  Schleiermacher,  has  its  seat  in  the 
feelings,  and  consists  in  the  consciousness  of  oneness 
with  the  absolute  or  infinite.  "The  reflection  of  the 
pious  man  is  only  the  immediate  consciousness  of  the 
general  existence  of  all  that  is  finite  in  the  infinite  and 
through  the  infinite,  of  all  that  is  temporal  in  the  eter- 
nal and  through  the  eternal.  To  seek  and  find  this  in 
all  that  lives  and  moves,  in  all  becoming  and  all 
^  Reden  iiber  die  Religion;  Lommatzsch's  edition  (1888),  p.  108. 


^ 


66  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

change,  in  all  doing  and  suffering,  and  even  in  im- 
mediate feeling  to  have  and  know  life  itself  only  as 
this  existence — this  is  religion.  When  it  finds  this  it 
is  satisfied ;  when  this  is  hidden  there  is  limitation  and 
anxiety,  need  and  death.  And  so  religion  is  life  in 
the  endless  nature  of  the  whole,  in  one  and  all,  in  God ; 
having  and  possessing  all  in  God  and  God  in  all."  ^ 
"The  universe  is  uninterruptedly  active,  and  every 
moment  reveals  itself  to  us.  In  every  form  which  it 
brings  forth,  in  every  being  to  which  out  of  the  full- 
ness of  life  it  gives  a  particular  existence  of  its  own, 
in  every  event  which  it  scatters  forth  firom  its  rich 
and  ever-fruitful  bosom  it  acts  upon  us;  and  in  all 
these  impressions  and  their  effects  in  us,  to  take  up 
into  our  life  and  to  let  ourselves  be  moved  by  indi- 
vidual and  limited  things  not  as  separate  and  opposed 
to  each  other,  but  as  parts  of  the  whole  and  expres- 
sions of  the  infinite — this  is  religion."  ^ 

Schleiermacher  felt  the  influence  both  of  the 
pietists,  with  whom  he  had  his  early  schooling,  and  of 
the  romanticists,  to  whose  innermost  circle  he  be- 
longed for  some  time  in  Berlin.  Both  pietists  and 
romanticists  emphasized  the  feelings.  The  former, 
in  opposition  to  the  cold  and  barren  scholasticism  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  laid  stress  upon  heart  reli- 
gion, expressing  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  con- 
version and  in  the  sense  of  the  presence  and  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  latter,  in  opposition  to  the 
narrow  and  one-sided  rationalism  of  the  eighteenth 

*lbld,,  p.  io6. 

*Ibid.,  p.  123.  • 


THE   EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  ^J 

century,  undertook  to  rehabilitate  the  despised  Hfe  of 
the  emotions  and  to  promote  a  culture  in  which  the 
passions  and  instincts  should  have  untrammeled  play. 
Schleiermacher's  "Discourses"  were  a  genuine  prod- 
uct of  the  romantic  spirit.  In  their  wealth  of  im- 
agery, their  eloquent  and  sometimes  turgid  style,  their 
emotional  rhapsodies,  their  frank  self -revelations, 
their  emphasis  upon  the  aesthetic  side  of  life,  their 
appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  nature,  they  constitute 
one  of  the  most  typical  of  romantic  writings.  No 
two  works  dealing  with  the  same  subject  could  be 
more  unlike  than  Schleiermacher's  Discourses  of 
1799,  and  Kant's  Religion  within  the  Bounds  of  the 
mere  Reason,  of  1793.  The  one  was  a  representa- 
tive utterance  of  romanticism,  the  other  of  rational- 
ism, both  serious  and  lofty  beyond  most  of  the  writ- 
ings of  their  respective  schools. 

It  is  due  to  Schleiermacher's  influence,  direct  or  in- 
direct, that  religion  has  been  defined  in  modern  times 
as  reverence  for  the  boundless  and  eternal,  for  in- 
stance by  Francis  W.  ,Newman,  as  awe  before  the 
mysterious  and  unknown  by  Herbert  Spencer,  as  en- 
thusiasm for  an  ideal  by  Strauss  and  Feuerbach,  as 
the  admiration  of  beauty  by  Ruskin,  as  the  feeling  of 
admiration  or  worship,  without  regard  to  the  object 
which  calls  it  forth,  by  Professor  Seeley,  in  his  nota- 
ble work  on  "Natural  Religion,"  published  in  1882. 
The  following  passages  from  Seeley's  work  are  worth 
quoting  in  this  connection :  *T  say  that  man  believes 
in  a  God  who  feels  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  power 
which  is  not  himself  and  is  immeasurably  above  him- 


68  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

self,  a  power  in  the  contemplation  of  which  he  is  ab- 
sorbed, in  the  knowledge  of  which  he  finds  safety  and 
happiness.  And  such  now  is  nature  to  scientific  men. 
I  do  not  now  say  that  it  is  good  or  satisfying  to  wor- 
ship such  a  God,  but  I  say  that  no  class  of  men  since 
the  world  began  has  ever  more  truly  believed  in  a 
God,  or  more  ardently  or  with  more  conviction  wor- 
shiped him."  ^  "The  true  artist  is  he  who  worships, 
for  worship  is  habitual  admiration.  It  is  the  enthusi- 
astic appreciation  of  something,  and  such  enthusiastic 
appreciation  is  the  qualification  without  which  an  ar- 
\  tist  cannot  even  be  conceived.  Wherever,  therefore, 
art  is,  there  is  religion."  ^  "The  result  of  the  move- 
ment in  art,  which  was  represented  abroad  by  Goethe 
and  in  England  principally  by  Wordsworth,  is  still 
plainly  perceptible,  both  in  the  art  and  even  in  the 
religion  of  the  present  age.  An  age  which  is  called 
atheistic,  and  in  which  atheism  is  loudly  professed, 
shows  in  all  its  imaginative  literature  a  religiousness 
— a  sense  of  the  divine — which  was  wanting  in  the 
more  orthodox  ages."  ^  To  which  may  be  added  the 
following  from  Bosanquet's  recent  Gifford  Lectures: 
"When  we  turn  to  consider  religion  in  its  widest  bear- 
ing upon  life,  the  impression  thus  left  by  the  special- 
ized tradition,  though  broadened,  is  confirmed.  In 
this  sense  the  religious  consciousness  has  no  special 
or  exclusive  connection  with  the  supernatural,  the 
other  world,  or  even  the  divine.     It  is  essentially  the 

*  P.  19. 
*Ibid.,  p.  91. 
"Ibid.,  p.  104. 


THE   EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  69 

attitude  in  which  the  finite  being  stands  to  whatever 
he  at  once  fears  and  approves,  in  a  word  to  what  he 
worships.  It  is  impossible  to  draw  the  Hne  at  any 
point  between  the  simplest  experiences  of  this  kind 
and  those  completest  forms  of  devotion  to  which  the 
term  religion  has  been  exclusively  applied."  ^  "In 
short,  then,  wherever  man  fairly  and  loyally  throws 
the  seat  of  his  value  outside  his  immediate  self  into 
something  else  which  he  worships,  with  which  he 
identifies  his  will,  and  which  he  takes  as  an  object 
solid  and  secure,  at  least  relatively,  to  his  private  ex- 
istence— as  an  artist  in  his  attitude  to  beauty,  or  as  a 
man  of  science  to  truth — there  we  have  in  its  de- 
gree the  experience  of  religion,  and,  also  in  its  degree, 
the  stability  and  security  of  the  finite  self ."  ^  No  one 
acquainted  with  modern  religious  literature  can  fail 
to  recognize  the  representative  character  of  such  ut- 
terances as  these. 

A  still  diflFerent  conception  of  religion  appears  in  ^y 
Hoffding's  Philosophy  of  Religion,  where  it  is  main- 
tained that  "the  fundamental  axiom  of  religion,  that 
which  expresses  the  innermost  tendency  of  all  reli- 
gions, is  the  axiom  of  the  conservation  of  value,"  ^ 
and  the  core  of  religion  is  found  in  "the  conviction 
that  no  value  perishes  out  of  the  world."  *  But  this 
definition  also,  while  the  fruit  of  the  modern  philo- 
sophical interest  in  the  subject  of  values  and  explica- 

*  The  Value  and  Destiny  of  the  Individual  (1913),  p.  235. 

'Ibid.,  p.  240. 

'  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  §  72. 

*Ibid.,  §  2. 


yO  THE  RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ble  only  in  its  light,  presupposes  the  work  of  Schleier- 
macher  in  setting  religion  free  from  its  traditional 
entanglements,  and  also  particularly  the  work  of  Kant 
and  Fichte.  There  are  many  other  modern  defini- 
tions of  religion  which  cannot  be  referred  to  here, 
and  the  active  prosecution  of  the  philosophy  and  psy- 
chology of  religion  will  doubtless  give  us  many  more. 
The  chief  significance  of  Schleiermacher's  concep- 
tion of  religion  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  regarded  it  as 
a  wholly  subjective  thing.  Distinguishing  it  from 
knowledge  on  the  one  side  and  from  conduct  on  the 
other  he  made  it  entirely  independent  of  objective 
facts  and  practices.  Religion  is  not  a  doctrine  or  sys- 
tem of  doctrines  touching  God  and  man  and  redemp- 
tion, nor  is  it  a  series  of  so-called  religious  acts,  indi- 
vidual or  communal.  They  are  but  its  fruits;  in  its 
essence  it  is  simply  man's  feeling  of  relationship  to 
something  larger  or  greater  than  himself.  Whether 
there  be  any  external  object  corresponding  to  his  feel- 
ing is  neither  here  nor  there.  If  he  feels  himself  one 
with  a  larger  whole,  he  is  religious,  quite  irrespective 
of  its  reality  or  unreality.  The  subject  of  religion 
is  thus  removed  from  the  sphere  of  philosophy  to  that 
of  psychology.  To  study  religion  is  not  to  study  the 
objects,  real  or  otherwise,  of  the  religious  man's  faith 
and  worship — the  being  and  nature  of  God  and  kin- 
dred themes — ^but  the  religious  man  himself,  the  ori- 
gin and  development  of  his  religious  feeling.  Feuer- 
bach  was  true,  in  so  far,  to  the  principles  of  Schleier- 
macher,  when  in  his  Wesen  des  Christenthums  he  sub- 
stituted the  problem  of  understanding  the  origin  of 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF   RELIGION  7 1 

religion  psychologically  for  the  endeavor  to  show  its 
rationality  and  truth. 

To  put  religion  wholly  in  the  feelings  has  also 
meant  to  remove  it  from  the  category  of  duties  and 
obligations.  According  to  the  traditional  Christian 
view,  religion,  like  the  moral  law,  was  given  by  God, 
and  its  observance  required  of  men.  To  be  religious 
was  as  much  of  a  duty  as  to  be  virtuous.  Irreligion, 
as  well  as  vice,  meant  disobedience  of  the  divine  law, 
and  the  one  entailed  eternal  punishment  as  truly  as 
the  other.  When  religion  is  identified  with  feeling  or 
emotion,  it  is  misleading  to  speak  of  it  as  a  duty  or  an 
obligation.  It  may  be  highly  desirable,  and  we  may 
recognize  that  the  person  who  has  it  is  to  be  congratu- 
lated, but  we  do  not  think  of  its  presence  or  absence 
as  morally  praiseworthy  or  blameworthy.  The  old 
notion  that  a  religious  man  is  morally  better  than  a 
man  without  religion,  that  the  latter  is  to  be  frowned 
upon,  condemned,  and  avoided,  is  seen  to  be  out  of 
place.  It  is  thus  possible  to  view  religion  quite  im- 
partially; to  study  scientifically  its  origin  and  growth 
in  the  life  of  the  individual;  to  examine  freely  the 
phenomena  of  conversion;  and  to  compare  and  clas- 
sify without  prejudice  different  types  of  religious  ex- 
perience. Thus  a  genuinely  scientific  treatment  of 
the  psychology  of  religion,  for  which  Schleiermach- 
er's  interpretation  of  religion  opened  the  way,  becomes 
for  the  first  time  practicable,  and,  though  for  various 
reasons,  including  prejudice  and  lack  of  interest  on 
the  part  of  scientific  men,  it  has  been  very  slow  in 
becoming  actual,  it  now  has  many  exponents,  and  we 


72  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

are  beginning  in  some  degree  to  realize  the  extraordi- 
nary revolution  in  traditional  conceptions  which  is 
bound  to  result  from  it.  The  modern  study  of  the 
psychology  of  religion,  it  is  true,  was  not  the  immedi- 
ate fruit  of  Schleiermacher's  work.  He  prepared  the 
ground  for  it  by  emphasizing  the  subjective  charac- 
ter of  religion  and  by  distinguishing  it  from  philoso- 
phy and  ethics.  But  the  psychology  of  religion  had 
to  wait  for  the  general  development  of  psychological 
interest  and  research,  and  the  kind  of  work  which 
students  of  the  subject  are  now  doing  and  the  meth- 
ods employed  by  them  presuppose  that  development. 
Schleiermacher's  confinement  of  religion  to  the 
realm  of  the  feelings  involved  no  undervaluation 
either  of  knowledge  or  virtue.  Nor  did  it  mean  that 
he  failed  to  recognize  the  influence  of  religion  over 
both.  On  the  contrary  he  was  very  emphatic  in  as- 
serting their  intimate  relationship  and  even  interde- 
pendence. Without  religion,  the  most  uplifting  and 
enlarging  of  all  influences,  neither  knowledge  nor  vir- 
tue can  be  perfected.  "But  in  my  opinion  it  is  impos- 
sible— heed  this  well — that  a  person  can  be  virtuous 
without  religion,  or  scientific  without  it."  ^  "True 
science  is  perfected  intuition.  True  practice  is  self- 
engendered  culture  and  art.  True  religion  is  sense 
and  taste  for  the  infinite.  To  wish  to  have  one  with- 
out the  other,  or  to  imagine  that  one  has  it  thus,  is 
rash  and  wanton  delusion."^  Thus,  according  to 
Schleiermacher,  all  three  belong  together  and  con- 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  108. 
*Ibid.,  p.  iia 


THE   EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  73 

dition  each  other.  But  the  relation  is  very  different 
from  that  assumed  by  rationaHsts  and  dogmatists. 

So  far  as  the  connection  between  religion  and  con- 
duct is  concerned,  religion  does  not  support  morality 
by  supplying  inducements  to  a  man  to  be  virtuous.  It 
supports  morality  by  enlarging  his  whole  nature,  by 
bringing  him  into  converse  with  the  infinite,  by  awak- 
ening his  consciousness  of  the  All  of  which  he  is  a 
part,  and  thus  eliciting  his  higher  and  nobler  instincts, 
and  making  it  impossible  for  him  to  live  a  petty,  nar- 
row, and  self -centered  life.  It  means  the  substitution 
of  the  natural  for  the  legal,  the  spontaneous  for  the 
forced,  the  real  and  vital  for  the  external  and  formal. 

Viewed  in  the  old  way  religion  might  well  seem 
superfluous  and  even  harmful — unnecessary  to  those 
who  recognized  the  inherent  worth  of  righteousness, 
confirming  in  their  error  those  who  did  not,  and  thus 
retarding  their  moral  development.  But,  when  reli- 
gion is  interpreted  as  emergence  from  the  narrow  lim- 
itations of  the  individual  life  into  the  consciousness 
of  a  larger  whole,  virtue  in  the  highest  sense,  as  the 
transcendence  of  self  and  the  devotion  of  one's  pow- 
ers to  the  good  of  all,  is  of  a  piece  with  it.  The  two 
act  and  react  upon  each  other,  and  neither  can  remain 
wholly  alone.  In  distinguishing  morality  and  religion 
Schleiermacher  really  united  them  more  intimately 
than  ever  before.  The  one  is  no  longer  merely  a 
means  to  the  other,  to  be  dispensed  with  if  virtue  can 
be  attained  without  it.  The  more  true  virtue  the  more 
real  religion.  As  virtue  develops  and  enlarges,  re- 
ligion does  the  same,   for  the  two  are  indissolubly 


74  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

bound  together,  the  consciousness  of  a  larger  whole 
and  the  activity  corresponding  therewith. 

It  is  evident  that  with  the  transformation  in  the 
idea  of  religion  was  associated  a  transformation  also 
in  the  idea  of  virtue.  Correlative  with  the  notion  of 
religion  as  belief  in  future  rewards  and  punishments 
was  that  of  virtue  as  the  keeping  of  a  law  in  order  to 
w4n  the  promised  prize  and  escape  the  threatened  pen- 
alty. Correlative  with  the  notion  of  religion  as  the 
consciousness  of  a  larger  whole  is  that  of  virtue  as 
life  in  the  light  of  such  consciousness — life  for  it  and 
in  devotion  to  it.  The  former  promotes  selfishness, 
the  latter  overcomes  it.  Here  the  modem  social  con- 
science has  laid  hold  upon  the  matter,  and  has  found 
in  religion,  thus  interpreted,  a  powerful  stimulus  and 
inspiration.  Set  free  from  its  old  subordination  to 
morality  religion  has  become  the  support  of  a  new  and 
larger  morality. 

Schleiermacher  defined  religion  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  All  and  of  our  relation  to  it.  A  modifica- 
tion of  his  idea  has  been  influential  which  interprets 
the  larger  whole  in  terms  of  moral  purpose,  and 
makes  religion  consist  in  the  recognition  of  this  divine 
purpose  and  virtue  life  in  sympathy  with  and  in  de- 
votion to  it.  Matthew  Arnold's  description  of  God  as 
the  "power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness" illustrates  this  position,  and,  in  the  teaching  of 
the  German  theologian  Ritschl,  it  finds  its  completest 
and  most  consistent  theological  formulation.  We  are 
religious  when  we  rise  above  our  separate  and  single 
selves  into  the  consciousness  of  a  divine  purpose,  and, 


THE   EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  75 

when  we  devote  ourselves  to  its  accomplishment,  we 
put  our  religion  into  practice  and  are  righteous  in  the 
highest  sense.  The  influence  of  this  conception  upon 
the  religious  thought  and  life  of  the  present  day  it 
would  be  hard  to  exaggerate. 

I  have  spoken  of  Schleiermacher's  notion  of  the 
relation  of  religion  to  conduct.  So  far  as  its  relation 
to  thought  is  concerned,  while  he  broke  completely 
with  the  common  eighteenth  century  assumption,  both 
orthodox  and  rationalistic,  that  religion  is  a  sum  of 
doctrines,  he  recognized  that  thinking  and  feeling 
cannot  be  divorced,  and  that  the  religious  man  in- 
evitably thinks  about  his  religious  experiences  and 
instinctively  strives  to  give  them  some  sort  of  intel- 
lectual expression.  Empty-headedness  and  thought- 
lessness consort  least  of  all  with  devoutness.  "You 
will  never  call  him  pious  who  goes  about  with  his 
mind  closed  in  stupidity  and  with  no  openness  of 
vision  for  the  world's  life."  ^ 

Theology  of  one  kind  or  another  is  thus  the  natural 
fruit  of  religion,  but  it  is  not  the  source  of  it  or  identi- 
cal with  it.  It  results  rather  from  reflection  upon  it. 
"If  now  this  really  constitutes  the  essence  of  religion 
— as  I  hope  I  have  made  clear  enough  to  all  of  you — 
it  is  not  difficult  to  answer  the  question:  Where  do 
those  dogmas  and  theologies  belong  which  many 
regard  as  the  true  essence  of  religion,  and  what  is 
their  relation  to  that  essence?  As  a  matter  of  fact  I 
have  already  answered  the  question.  For  all  these 
propositions  are  nothing  else  than  the  result  of  that 

*  Ibid.,  p.  io6. 


'jd  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

contemplation  of  feeling,  of  that  reflection  upon  it, 
of  which  I  spoke  above.  And  the  concepts  which 
underlie  these  propositions,  as  is  the  case  likewise  with 
your  empirical  concepts,  are  nothing  else  than  the 
common  expression  for  a  particular  feeling.  For  its 
own  sake  religion  needs  no  such  expression,  hardly 
even  to  propagate  itself.  But  reflection  needs  it  and 
creates  it."  ^ 

Theologies,  therefore,  may  differ  widely,  and  yet 
the  religion  which  underlies  them  be  equally  pure  and 
genuine.  The  form  which  the  theology  takes  depends 
upon  many  other  things.  The  traditions  into  which  a 
man  is  born,  the  training  he  has  enjoyed,  the  prevail- 
ing ideas  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives,  are  all  reflected 
in  his  thought.  Identical  or  similar  experiences  may 
thus  express  themselves  in  many  different  forms. 

In  this  conception  of  the  relation  of  theology  and 
religion,  which  has  become  a  commonplace  since 
Schleiermacher's  time,  is  to  be  found  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal secrets  of  the  breadth  and  charity  with  which 
modern  Christians  regard  the  adherents  of  other  faiths 
than  their  own.  And  it  has  made  possible  the  scien- 
tific study  of  the  history  of  religion  which  distin- 
guishes our  day.  The  old  contrast  between  true  and 
false  religions,  which  led  to  the  condemnation  of  all 
except  Judaism  and  Christianity,  is  seen  to  be  falla- 
cious. When  religion  is  interpreted  as  Schleiermacher 
interpreted  it  the  adjectives  true  and  false  are  as  ir- 
relevant to  it  as  blue  and  yellow.  The  conclusions 
drawn  from  religion  and  the  theologies  built  upon  it 

'Ibid,  p.  75 ff. 


THE   EMANCIPATION   OF   RELIGION  77 

may  be  true  or  false,  but  religion  itself  lies  in  another 
realm,  where  such  categories  are  wholly  out  of  place. 
As  Schleiermacher  himself  says:  "In  the  immediacy 
of  religion  all  is  true;  for  how  could  it  otherwise 
come  to  be?  But  only  that  is  immediate  which  has 
not  yet  passed  through  the  concept,  but  has  grown 
up  simply  in  feeling."  ^  "Everyone  must  be  conscious 
that  his  religion  is  only  a  part  of  the  whole,  that  there 
are  views  and  sentiments  touching  the  same  conditions 
that  affect  him  religiously  which  are  as  pious  as  his 
own  and  yet  entirely  different,  and  that  there  belong 
to  other  forms  of  religion  perceptions  and  feelings 
for  which  he  has  perhaps  no  capacity.  You  see  how 
immediately  this  beautiful  modesty,  this  friendly  and 
inviting  tolerance,  springs  out  of  the  essence  of  reli- 
gion, and  how  little  it  can  be  divorced  from  it."  ^ 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  modern  notion  of  religion 
has  made  possible  a  degree  of  liberality  which  neither 
conservatives  nor  radicals  were  capable  of  in  earlier 
days.  To-day  liberalism  exists  even  among  those  of 
strong  and  deep  religious  faith,  whereas  in  other  days 
it  could  hardly  be  shared  in  so  great  a  degree  by  any 
but  the  religiously  indifferent. 

Schleiermacher' s  interpretation  of  religion  is  not 
universally  accepted,  but,  even  so,  it  has  had  the  effect 
everywhere  of  giving  a  new  independence  to  religion 
and  freeing  it  from  its  old  subordination.  Religion 
thus  enjoys  in  present-day  thought  a  respect,  and  com- 
mands  an   attention,   even   from  non-religious   men 

*Ibid.,  p.  130. 
*Ibid.,  p.  131. 


78  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

which  were  formerly  not  accorded  to  it.  So  long  as 
it  was  a  mere  means  to  some  other  end,  eternal  salva- 
tion or  the  practice  of  virtue,  the  belief  that  the  end 
was  chimerical,  or  that  it  could  better  be  attained  by 
other  means,  led  to  the  condemnation  of  religion  as 
unwholesome  or  vicious,  and  so  long  as  it  was  indis- 
solubly  bound  up  with  all  sorts  of  traditional  dogmas, 
the  advancing  intelligence  of  the  modern  age  was  dis- 
posed to  count  it  among  the  outworn  superstitions  of 
the  past,  and  to  turn  from  it  in  contempt.  But,  when 
once  set  upon  its  own  feet,  it  became  an  object  of  new 
interest  to  scientific  scholars,  whatever  their  own  re- 
ligious attitude.  It  has  thus  been  studied  with  a  new 
sympathy  and  impartiality,  and  it  has  also  gained  for 
itself  respectful  attention  and  treatment.  This  means 
much  for  the  religious  thought  of  to-day.  A  new 
atmosphere  has  been  created  within  which  beliefs  and 
ideas  of  the  most  various  kinds  can  live  and  breathe 
freely,  v/hile  the  discussion  of  them  may  be  engaged 
in  without  rancor  by  men  of  diverse  schools,  both 
within  and  without  the  Church.  There  are  still  some 
who  think  of  religion  in  the  old  way  and  denounce 
differences  in  religious  belief  with  the  old  vigor  and 
bitterness,  but  the  great  mass  of  modern  thinkers, 
even  those  whose  religious  beliefs  are  conservative 
enough,  live  in  a  new  world  and  breathe  a  new  and 
freer  air. 

In  concluding  this  chapter  it  should  be  said  that  one 
of  the  most  notable  things  in  the  modern  situation  is 
the  vast  enlargement  and  enrichment  of  the  idea  of 
religion  to  which  its  emancipation  from  the  old  servi- 


THE   EMANCIPATION    OF   RELIGION  79 

tude  has  led.  It  is  widely  recognized  to-day  that 
wherever  a  man  is  interested  in  something  else  than 
the  life  of  the  mere  senses,  or  is  devoted  to  something 
else  than  his  own  selfish  welfare,  there  is  religion. 
Whether  it  be  art,  or  science,  or  philosophy,  or  patri- 
otism, or  humanitarianism,  or  the  worship  of  God  that 
thus  takes  him  out  of  himself  and  lifts  him  into  the 
region  of  the  spiritual  and  ideal  the  essence  of  religion 
is  his.  Thus  interpreted  religion  is  no  longer  some- 
thing to  be  outgrown  and  abandoned,  a  mere  survival 
from  a  primitive  and  credulous  age.  It  is  the  flower 
of  the  highest  and  best  impulses  and  is  destined  to 
find  permanent  and  ever  expanding  utterance  in  the 
developing  life  of  man. 

In  this  enlargement  of  its  sphere  and  enrichment 
of  its  character,  it  is  widely  believed  to-day,  lies  the 
greatest  promise  for  the  future  of  religion.  The  re- 
ligious views  of  the  modern  age  may  be  of  one  sort 
or  another,  old  ideas  may  be  abandoned  and  new  ones 
may  emerge  wholly  inconsistent  with  them,  but  so 
long  as  man  is  higher  than  the  brute  and  more  than 
a  mere  segregated  and  self-absorbed  unit  religion  will 
have  its  place  in  human  life.  And  as  the  misunder- 
standings of  the  past  are  outgrown,  and  its  true  na- 
ture generally  recognized,  it  is  hoped  by  many  that  it 
will  constitute  instead  of  a  bone  of  contention  a  bond 
of  union,  promoting,  not  as  too  often  in  the  past,  the 
division,  but  the  cooperation  of  all  the  forces  making 
for  virtue  and  enlightenment. 

But  this  carries  us  beyond  the  subject  of  the  pres- 
ent chapter.     Here  I  have  been  concerned  only  to 


80  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

show  how  religion  was  set  free  from  its  old  connec- 
tions and  the  ground  cleared  for  positive  reconstruc- 
tions. Of  course,  the  process  cannot  stop  here.  If 
religion  be  a  real  thing  in  the  life  of  any  man  it  must 
affect  his  thinking  and  his  willing,  as  Schleiermacher 
himself  recognized.  But  the  chief  historic  significance 
of  the  particular  process  which  has  been  traced  lies 
in  its  negative  aspect — the  differentiation  of  religion 
from  theology  and  from  cult,  so  that  it  has  become 
possible  for  it  to  express  itself  in  the  most  various  and 
novel  ways. 


CHAPTER   VI V 

THE    REBIRTH    OF    SPECULATION 

The  critical  philosophy  of  Kant  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  access  to  the  thing-in-itself  or  to  the  reality 
lying  back  of  phenomena.  We  can  know  what  appears 
to  us  as  it  appears  to  us,  but  that  is  all.  What  it  may 
be  apart  from  its  appearances  or  what  may  constitute 
its  inner  essence  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 
It  is  also  impossible  to  transcend  our  ideas  and  to 
know  a  world  of  objective  realities  corresponding  to 
them.  In  the  former  case,  though  we  cannot  know 
what  they  are,  we  must  assume  the  existence  of  things 
in  themselves,  without  which  sense  perception  would 
be  impossible;  in  the  latter  case  we  cannot  be  sure 
that  there  is  any  external  reality  whatsoever.  This 
scepticism  was  intolerable  to  many,  both  philosophers 
and  theologians.  To  be  shut  away  from  all  reality 
beyond  the  phenomena  of  sense  perception  and  the 
world  of  ideas  seemed  to  make  both  metaphysics  and 
religion  a  vain  dream.  Efforts  were  consequently 
made  to  escape  the  dilemma  and  to  discover  some 
means  of  attaining  a  knowledge  of  reality.  Among 
these  attempts  the  boldest  and  most  imposing  was  that 
of  post-Kantian  idealism. 

8i 


82  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Already  in  1787,  in  his  work  entitled  David  Hume 
iiber  den  Glauben  oder  Idealismus  und  Realismus,  the 
philosopher  Jacobi  asserted  that  the  assumption  of 
things  in  themselves  was  a  radical  inconsistency  in 
Kant's  philosophy  which  really  involved  a  thorough- 
going idealism  or  the  denial  of  all  reality  outside  the 
thinking  self.  The  thing-in-itself,  according  to  Kant, 
was  not  in  space  or  time,  and  the  category  of  causality 
could  not  be  applied  to  it,  for  these  had  to  do  only 
with  the  world  of  phenomena.  Hence,  so  Jacobi  in- 
sisted, it  cannot  properly  be  called  a  thing  or  a  sub- 
stance; it  is  a  mere  nothing,  and  exists  only  in  the 
mind  of  the  thinking  subject.  To  Jacobi,  who  was  a 
convinced  realist,  such  idealism  was  intolerable,  but 
there  were  some  of  Kant's  followers  who  welcomed  it, 
and  found  in  it  the  solution  of  all  metaphysical  and 
religious  difficulties.  Chief  among  them  were  the 
closely  related  triumvirate,  Fichte,  Schelling,  and 
Hegel. 

Fichte  was  first  attracted  to  Kant  by  the  latter' s  tri- 
umphant vindication  of  human  freedom  which  had 
seemed  to  Fichte  himself  forever  disproved  by  the 
philosophy  of  Spinoza.  The  practical  reason,  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  makes  the  postulate  of  freedom  a  neces- 
sity. But  in  the  phenomenal  world  there  is  no  free- 
dom. All  that  occurs  therein  is  bound  by  the  iron 
chain  of  cause  and  effect.  The  seeming  contradiction 
is  resolved  by  the  assumption  that  the  self  has  an  ex- 
istence beyond  the  world  of  phenomena,  where  the 
category  of  causation  does  not  apply.  But  this  means 
that  the  ego  is  a  true  thing-in-itself,  and  Fichte  drew 


THE   REBIRTH    OF    SPECULATION  83 

the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  other,  that  the  thing- 
in-itself  which  Kant  had  assumed  to  account  for  phe- 
nomena is  in  reaHty  one  with  the  thinking  mind.  The 
ego,  according  to  Fichte,  not  only  supplies  the  forms 
of  thought,  as  Kant  had  said,  but  the  material  as  well. 
This,  of  course,  is  thoroughgoing  idealism.  The  fol- 
lowing passage  from  his  Bestimmung  des  Menschefi 
shows  clearly  enough  the  controlling  interest  which 
led  Fichte  to  idealism.  "With  this  insight,  O  mortal, 
be  free  and  forever  redeemed  from  the  fear  which 
depressed  and  troubled  thee.  Thou  wilt  now  no  longer 
tremble  before  a  necessity  which  is  only  in  thy  think- 
ing, no  longer  fear  being  oppressed  by  things  which 
are  thy  own  creation,  no  longer  put  thyself,  the  thinker, 
in  the  same  class  with  that  which  thou  thinkest.  So 
long  as  thou  couldst  believe  that  such  a  system  of 
things  as  thou  hadst  pictured  to  thyself  actually  ex- 
isted independently  and  outside  of  thee  and  that  thou 
mightst  be  only  a  link  in  the  chain  this  fear  was  jus- 
tified. Now  that  thou  hast  seen  that  all  this  is  only 
in  thyself  and  through  thyself  thou  wilt  surely  not  fear 
that  which  thou  recognizest  as  thy  own  creation."  ^ 

Not  intellectual  considerations  primarily  but  ethi- 
cal drove  Fichte  to  adopt  the  idealistic  rather  than  the 
realistic  alternative.  As  he  said  himself  every  man's 
philosophy  depends  on  the  kind  of  man  he  is. 

In  affirming  itself  as  subject  the  ego,  according  to 

Fichte,  necessarily  affirms  an  object  and  so  creates  its 

own  world  by  which  it  is  limited  and  which  it  then 

strives  to  overcome.    In  this  struggle  for  victory  over 

^Fichte's  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.' 24a 


84  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  world  the  moral  life  consists  and  in  it  the  moral 
character  is  developed.  Only  as  there  is  opposition 
to  overcome  can  there  be  moral  activity  and  growth. 
"My  world/'  Fichte  says,  "is  the  object  and  sphere  of 
my  duties  and  absolutely  nothing  else."  ^ 

All  reality  is  simply  the  activity  of  the  ego.  An 
independent  reality  for  things  it  is  not  only  intellectu- 
ally but  ethically  forbidden  us  to  assume.  Were  we 
to  assume  it  freedom  would  be  impossible  and  we 
should  be  but  the  slaves  of  nature  instead  of  its  mas- 
ters. It  is  our  duty  not  to  conform  to  the  world  but 
to  transform  it  in  accordance  with  our  ideals.  It  is 
there  not  to  be  served  but  to  be  used.  It  has  no  inde- 
pendent value  of  its  own ;  it  is  a  means  only  and  not  an 
end  in  itself.  The  ego  is  everything  and  all  exists 
not  simply  for  its  sake  but  by  its  creation. 

As  the  world  is  not  an  independent  thing- in-itself, 
but  is  of  the  ego's  own  creating,  it  can  be  known 
through  and  through.  For  Kant's  dualism  of  thought 
and  thing,  which  had  made  the  knowledge  of  the  latter 
impossible,  Fichte  substituted  the  monism  of  the  self 
which  opened  the  whole  of  reality.  Reality  does  not 
He  beyond  our  ken;  we  have  immediate  and  sure  ac- 
cess to  it.  Thus  Kant's  scepticism  was  circumvented, 
while  his  critical  principles  were  fully  confirmed.  We 
do  not  pretend  to  transcend  self -consciousness,  but 
we  know  reality  fully,  for  it  is  within  consciousness, 
not  without. 

In  the  early  statements  of  his  philosophy  Fichte 
spoke  of  the  self  which  creates  its  own  world  in  such 
*  Ibid.,  p.  261. 


THE   REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  85 

a  way  as  to  leave  the  impression  that  he  meant  by  it 
only  the  individual  self.  But  when  accused  in  conse- 
quence of  subjectivism  and  solipsism,  he  pronounced 
the  impression  erroneous  and  declared  that  the  crea- 
tive self  is  not  a  particular  and  limited  person  but  the 
absolute  ego.  The  theoretical  reason,  he  admitted, 
cannot  carry  us  beyond  complete  solipsism  and  pure 
subjectivism.  We  cannot  rationally  demonstrate  the 
reality  either  of  other  minds  than  our  own  or  of  ex- 
ternal things  of  any  sort,  but  duty  makes  their  ex- 
istence certain  to  us.  *'I  am  confronted  by  phenomena 
in  space  which  I  conceive  in  the  light  of  my  own  na- 
ture; I  think  of  them  as  beings  like  myself.  Rigid 
speculation  has  taught  me,  or  will  teach  me,  that  these 
alleged  rational  beings  outside  of  me  are  nothing  but 
products  of  my  fancy.  .  .  .  But  the  voice  of  my  con- 
science cries :  Whatever  these  beings  may  be  in  them- 
selves thou  must  treat  them  as  if  they  were  free,  au- 
tonomous, and  entirely  independent  of  thee.  Assume 
it  as  certain  that  they  are  in  no  way  subject  to  thee 
and  that  they  can  set  before  themselves  their  own 
ends;  never  interfere  with  the  accomplishment  of  those 
ends,  but  do  all  that  thou  canst  to  forward  them ;  honor 
their  freedom;  prize  their  ends  as  thine  own.  So 
ought  I  to  act.  Such  action  should  be  the  object  of  all 
my  thought;  and  will  necessarily  be  if  I  have  once 
made  up  my  mind  to  obey  the  voice  of  my  conscience. 
I  shall  accordingly  always  regard  these  beings  as  hav- 
ing their  own  life  independent  of  me,  as  beings  who 
have  and  accomplish  ends  of  their  own ;  I  shall  not  be 
able  to  think  of  them  otherwise;  and  the  notion  that 


86  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

they  are  only  products  of  my  fancy  will  disappear  like 
an  empty  dream."  ^ 

"I  am  confronted  by  other  phenomena  which  I  re- 
gard not  as  beings  like  myself  but  as  irrational  things. 
Speculation  has  no  difficulty  in  proving  that  the  no- 
tion of  such  things  is  developed  solely  out  of  my  imagi- 
nation and  its  necessary  activities.  But  I  need  them 
and  desire  them  for  my  own  enjoyment.  I  am  driven 
to  use  things  for  food  and  drink,  not  because  I  have 
an  idea  of  them,  but  because  I  am  hungry  and  thirsty. 
I  am  compelled  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  that  which 
threatens  my  bodily  existence  or  is  alone  able  to  sup- 
port it.  Conscience  also  does  its  part  in  sanctifying 
and  at  the  same  time  limiting  my  natural  impulses. 
Thou  shalt  preserve  and  exercise  and  strengthen  thy- 
self and  thy  powers  for  they  too  are  counted  upon  in 
the  world  plan.  But  thou  canst  preserve  them  only  by 
acting  according  to  the  laws  of  things.  There  are  also 
other  beings  like  thyself  whose  powers  are  counted 
on  as  thine  are  and  which  can  be  preserved  only  in 
the  same  way  as  thine  own.  Permit  them  to  make  the 
same  use  of  things  as  is  required  of  thee.  Honor 
what  belongs  to  them  as  their  property;  treat  what 
belongs  to  thee  as  thine  own.  So  must  I  act,  and  my 
thinking  must  be  in  harmony  therewith.  Accordingly, 
I  am  obliged  to  regard  these  things  as  existing  under 
laws  of  nature  which  are  independent  of  me,  although 
known  by  me,  and  hence  to  ascribe  to  them  an  ex- 
istence of  their  own  apart  from  myself.  Being  under 
the  necessity  of  believing  in  such  laws,  and  being 

*  Ibid.,  p.  259. 


THE  REBIRTH   OF  SPECULATION  87 

driven  to  investigate  them,  my  empty  speculation  van- 
ishes Hke  the  mist  as  soon  as  the  sun  appears."  ^ 

Thus  it  is  our  sense  of  duty  alone  that  gives  us  a 
real  world  of  men  and  things,  "for  in  no  other  way 
does  the  world  exist  for  any  rational  being."  ^  "We 
do  not  act  because  we  know ;  but  we  know  because  we 
are  made  for  acting.  The  practical  reason  is  the 
root  of  all  reason."  ^ 

But  duty  also  reveals  the  existence  of  a  moral  order 
not  of  our  own  creating,  for  its  imperative,  which  we 
must  obey  quite  without  regard  to  consequences,  is  ra- 
tional only  if  the  good  will  bears  fruit  in  good.  This 
it  must  do,  if  not  in  the  world  of  sense  where  good 
intentions  often  work  harm,  and  where  the  right  is 
often  forwarded  even  by  indifference  and  wickedness, 
then  in  a  higher  world  of  spiritual  values.* 

We  are  thus  led  to  believe  in  an  infinite  will  to  which 
the  moral  order  is  due  and  which  creates  in  us  and 
for  us  the  objective  world  wherein  our  duty  lies.  It 
is  due  to  this  infinite  will  that  we  know  and  can  com- 
municate and  codperate  with  others  than  ourselves, 
and  that  we  and  they  have  the  same  and  not  each 
a  separate  and  different  world  to  labor  in.^ 

Thus  while  rejecting  Kant's  assumption  of  an  inde- 
pendent world  of  things  in  themselves — for  the  infinite 
will  creates  not  things  in  themselves  but  in  our  con- 

*Ibid.,  p.  260. 
*Ibid.,  p.  288. 
•Ibid.,  p.  263. 
*Ibid.,  p.  136. 
•Ibid.,  p.  139  ff. 


88  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

sciousness — Fichte  was  saved  from  mere  subjectivity 
by  belief  in  an  absolute  will.  This  absolute  is  all  in 
all,  and  apart  from  him  there  is  nothing.  "The  dead 
and  heavy  mass  which  simply  filled  up  space  has  van- 
ished, and  in  its  place  there  flows  and  surges  and  mur- 
murs the  eternal  stream  of  life  and  force  and  deed — of 
original  life — thy  life,  Endless  One;  for  all  life  is  thy 
life,  and  only  the  religious  eye  penetrates  to  the  realm 
of  true  beauty."  ^ 

Fichte's  philosophy  was  criticized  by  his  disciple 
Schelling,  in  his  Erster  Entwurf  eines  Systems  der 
Nahtrphilo Sophie  (1799),  on  the  ground  that  he 
thought  too  contemptuously  of  nature  and  gave  it  too 
subordinate  a  place  in  the  scheme  of  things.  Accord- 
ing to  Schelling,  nature  is  as  real  and  original  a  datum 
as  mind.  It  is  not  a  mere  means  to  the  development 
of  the  ego;  it  is  as  much  an  end  in  itself  as  the  ego  is, 
and  it  passes  through  its  own  independent  develop- 
ment. The  absolute,  Schelling  maintained,  in  his 
Darstellung  meines  Systems  (1801),  is  not  the  ego 
which  creates  and  sets  over  against  itself  a  non-ego 
or  world  of  nature,  as  he  had  at  first  thought  in  agree- 
ment with  Fichte;  the  absolute  lies  back  of  the  ego 
and  the  non-ego,  back  of  the  distinction  between 
thought  and  thing,  subject  and  object,  alike  indiffer- 
ent to  both.  Out  of  the  absolute  they  have  both  come, 
and  hence  the  two  are  in  harmony,  and  there  exists 
a  complete  parallelism  of  being  and  thought,  as  in 
the  system  of  Spinoza,  by  which  Schelling  was  largely 
influenced  at  this  time.  To  know  the  absolute  in  its 
*Ibid.,  p.  315. 


THE  REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  89 

pure  absoluteness  antecedent  to  its  differentiation  into 
nature  and  mind,  is  the  final  aim  of  all  true  philosophy. 
Such  knowledge,  Schelling  went  on  to  show,  in  his 
Bruno  (1802),  cannot  be  attained  by  the  ordinary 
processes  of  thought,  nor  is  it  accessible  to  the  mass  of 
men.  It  can  be  grasped  only  in  immediate  intuition 
and  only  by  souls  possessed  of  spiritual  vision  which 
is  of  a  piece  with  the  aesthetic  sense  of  the  true  ar- 
tist. 

Schelling's  philosophy  of  the  absolute  was  a  genu- 
ine embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  contemporary  roman- 
ticism which  in  it  came  to  most  elaborate  and  compre- 
hensive expression.  Characteristic  of  romanticism 
was  not  only  the  controlling  aesthetic  interest  of  his 
philosophy,  but  also  its  brilliant  flashes  of  insight,  its 
wide  range,  its  richness  of  content,  its  vagueness  of 
outline,  and  the  contempt  shown  in  it  for  ordered 
thought  and  scientific  method. 

It  was  the  last  that  finally  led  Schelling's  friend 
and  co-worker  Hegel  to  break  away  from  him  and  fol- 
low an  independent  path  of  his  own.  Philosophy,  h6/ 
said,  should  be  science,  not  poetry.  It  should  be  based 
not  upon  mere  intuition  but  upon  rigorously  logical 
and  sustained  thought.  That  Hegel  acquired  an  in- 
fluence far  wider  and  more  lasting  than  Schelling's 
was  due  not  merely  to  the  substance  of  his  philosophy 
— indeed  many  of  his  most  fruitful  ideas  were  antici- 
pated by  Schelling — but  also  to  the  fact  that  he  substi- 
tuted careful  and  logical  thinking  for  the  immediate 
intuitions  of  genius  and  worked  out  a  speculative  sys- 
tem impressive  both  in  its  structure  and  dimensions. 


OO  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Hegel  agreed  with  Schelling  that  the  absolute  is  the 
only  proper  subject  of  philosophy,  but  he  disagreed 
with  him  in  his  definition  of  the  absolute.  The  ab- 
solute, he  maintained,  is  not  mere  being  lying  back  of 
nature  and  mind  and  indifferent  to  them  both.  If  it 
were,  it  would  be  impossible  to  explain  their  emergence 
from  it.  Nature  and  mind  are  themselves  the  abso- 
lute. They  have  not  proceeded  from  it  or  been  pro- 
duced by  it;  they  are  identical  with  it.  The  absolute 
is  not  the  mere  quiescent  background  of  life,  it  is 
itself  living  spirit  and  as  such  is  constantly  growing 
and  developing.  To  live  is  to  grow ;  to  be  is  to  become. 
But  all  becoming  is  overcoming.  Fichte  had  taught 
that  the  ego  sets  over  against  itself  a  non-ego,  in  gain- 
ing the  victory  over  which  it  finds  its  moral  life.  Hegel 
teaches  that  all  development  involves  opposition  and 
the  overcoming  of  it.  Without  an  object  to  work  upon 
there  can  be  no  activity,  only  potentiality.  The  abso- 
lute does  not  exclude  distinction  and  difference,  it  in- 
cludes them.  It  is  full  of  contradictions  which  it  is 
continually  overcoming  and  reconciling  in  a  higher 
unity.  HegeFs  formula  of  development,  already  em- 
ployed by  Fichte,  was  the  triad,  thesis,  antithesis,  and 
synthesis.  All  evolution  proceeds  from  an  original 
principle,  through  differentiation  and  distinction,  to  a 
higher  unity  which  becomes  again  the  starting  point 
for  a  further  process  of  unfolding  and  reuniting. 
Thus  the  absolute  develops  or  unfolds  itself  by  mak- 
ing itself  another,  and  then  overcoming  this  other- 
ness in  a  richer  and  loftier  unity. 

The  absolute's  otherness  is  nature.    In  human  con- 


THE  REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  -.    QI 

sciousness  takes  place  the  synthesis  between  thought 
and  thing,  and  the  opposition  within  the  absolute  is 
overcome.  This  evolution  of  the  absolute  is  the  true 
subject  of  philosophy  and  is  to  be  studied  in  nature  and 
history.  To  reach  the  absolute  we  do  not  turn  back 
to  an  original  substance  or  being  which  we  can  appre- 
hend only  in  the  ecstacy  of  immediate  intuition;  we 
seek  the  absolute  in  the  world  of  matter  and  spirit  in 
which  alone  it  manifests  itself.  It  can  be  fully  known 
only  at  the  end  of  the  process  of  development,  not 
at  the  beginning,  and  only  as  the  process  is  traced 
through  all  its  stages.  Hegel  did  not  mean  to  substi- 
tute for  a  knowledge  of  phenomena  a  higher  kind  of 
knowledge  entirely  divorced  from  them.  On  the  con- 
trary he  was  emphatic  in  his  insistence  upon  keeping 
one's  feet  on  the  solid  ground  of  given  facts. 

But  philosophy  does  not  stop  with  the  mere  facts 
as  immediately  given.  It  seeks  the  absolute  which 
reveals  itself  in  them,  and  is  not  content  until  it  has 
interpreted  them  in  its  light  and  thus  shown  them  to  be 
rational.  The  aim  of  Hegel's  philosophy  was  not  to 
construct  a  world,  but  to  explain  the  world  we  already 
have.  It  did  not  claim  to  take  the  place  of  science, 
or  to  make  the  latter  unnecessary.  But  it  undertook 
to  set  the  facts  of  science  in  a  higher  connection  and 
to  discover  their  inner  significance  and  real  essence, 
for  it  maintained  that  not  the  mere  brute  fact  but  its 
meaning  is  the  true  reality.  Like  Fichte  and  Schelling, 
Hegel  was  a  genuine  idealist  and  found  the  essence 
of  reality  in  mind,  not  matter.  The  absolute  is  spirit, 
and  its  development  is  nothing  else  than  that  of  con- 


92  THE   RISE   OF    MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

sciousness,  which  also  follows  the  triadic  formula, 
thesis,  or  the  ego  as  subject,  antithesis,  or  the  ego  as 
object,  and  synthesis,  or  the  recognition  of  the  identity 
of  subject  and  object.  Being  and  thought  are  one, 
and  the  laws  of  the  latter  are  the  laws  of  the  former. 
By  following  the  necessary  dialectic  of  thought  we 
may  trace  the  evolution  of  reality  and  assign  to  every 
event  its  place  therein;  for  all  that  is  is  rational,  and 
philosophy  has  not  fulfilled  its  task  until  it  has  shown 
its  rationality. 

Hegel's  system  therefore  contained  an  elaborate 
treatment  both  of  nature  and  of  history.  In  the  for- 
mer he  depended  largely  upon  Schelling,  but  in  the 
latter  he  went  his  own  independent  way,  and  his  con- 
tributions to  an  understanding  of  human  history  are 
the  most  valuable  part  of  his  work.  His  writings  are 
full  of  brilliant  historical  generalizations  and  interest- 
ing interpretations  of  historical  movements  and  events, 
and  though  investigation  since  his  day  has  shown  their 
unsoundness  in  perhaps  the  majority  of  cases,  he  yet 
did  more  than  anyone  else  to  promote  an  interest  in 
history  and  to  lay  the  foundations  for  the  immense 
development  of  historical  science  during  the  past  sev- 
enty-five years.  At  the  same  time  his  insistence  upon 
the  rationality  of  history,  including  its  dark  scenes  as 
well  as  its  bright,  and  his  contention  that  all  of  it  is 
but  the  working  out  of  permanent  and  necessary  laws, 
contributed  to  an  extreme  optimism  which  bore  within 
it  the  seeds  of  reaction,  not  only  against  his  reading 
of  history  but  against  the  whole  Hegelian  philosophy. 

Post-Kantian  idealism,  which  reached  its  culmination 


THE   REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  93 

in  the  system  of  Hegel,  was  in  general  a  protest  against 
the  phenomenalism  of  Kant  and  an  effort  to  reach  a 
knowledge  of  supraphenomenal  reality  which  he  had 
declared  quite  impossible.  Kant's  scepticism  was  based 
upon  the  dualism  between  idea  and  reality,  and  it  was 
overcome  by  asserting  their  identity;  and  thus  specu- 
lation, which  he  had  shown  to  be  quite  incompetent  to 
attain  a  knowledge  of  reality,  was  again  legitimatized 
and  made  the  road  to  the  highest  of  all  reality, 
the  absolute  self.  This  meant  the  denial  of  the 
primacy  of  the  practical  reason,  which  both  Kant  and 
Fichte  had  insisted  upon,  and  the  restoration  of  the- 
oretical reason  to  its  old  sovereignty.  But  the  contrast 
with  pre-Kantian  dogmatism,  in  which  the  theoretical 
reason  was  also  supreme,  was  very  great.  Truth,  ac- 
cording to  Hegel,  is  not  a  fixed  and  finished  thing 
which  we  may  grasp  in  its  entirety  and  express  in  a 
rigid  and  unchanging  formula.  Truth  is  constantly 
developing,  and  it  embraces  all  sorts  of  inconsistencies 
and  contrarieties.  It  is  inclusive,  not  exclusive.  Be- 
cause it  is  this,  we  cannot  say  it  is  not  that.  It  may 
be  both  this  and  that,  or  may  be  in  process  of  becoming 
both,  contradictory  as  they  are.  Thus  the  Hegelian 
philosophy  made  for  breadth,  not  narrowness,  for 
fluidity,  not  rigidity,  for  development  and  change,  not 
for  finality  in  statements  of  the  truth.  In  all  this  its 
influence,  particularly  in  the  sphere  of  religious 
thought,  has  been  tremendous. 

In  his  Encyclopcedie  der  philosophischen  Wissen- 
schaften,  published  in  1817,  and  more  fully  in  his 
lectures  upon  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  published 


94  THE   RISE    OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

posthumously  in  1832,  Hegel  applied  the  principles 
of  his  philosophy  to  the  subject  of  religion,  and  his  re- 
statements of  religious  truth  and  his  reinterpretations 
of  Christian  doctrine  are  of  particular  interest  and 
significance.  "God,"  he  says,  "is  the  absolute  sub- 
stance, the  one  true  reality.  Everything  else  that  is 
real  is  not  real  in  itself;  it  has  no  existence  in  itself; 
the  only  absolute  reality  is  God  alone,  and  so  he  is  the 
absolute  substance."  ^  God  comes  to  self -conscious- 
ness in  positing  himself  as  object,  and  in  recognizing 
the  oneness  of  subject  and  object  thus  set  over  against 
each  other.  His  self-objectification  is  the  world,  which 
is  thus  a  moment  in  the  divine  process  of  self -con- 
sciousness, or  in  the  development  of  the  absolute  which 
comes  to  consciousness  only  through  the  finite.  "The 
finite  is  an  essential  element  of  the  infinite  in  the  na- 
ture of  God,  and  therefore  we  may  say,  God  it  is  who 
makes  himself  finite,  who  sets  limits  to  himself.  This 
might  at  first  sight  appear  undivine,  but  we  find  the 
same  thing  in  the  ordinary  representations  of  God,  for 
we  are  accustomed  to  believe  in  him  as  the  creator  of 
the  world.  God  creates  a  world;  God  sets  limits; 
outside  of  him  there  is  nothing  to  set  limits;  he  sets 
limits  to  himself  in  that  he  thinks  himself,  sets  an- 
other over  against  himself ;  he  and  the  world  are  two. 
.  .  .  Only  God  is;  God,  however,  only  through  the 
mediation  of  himself  with  himself.  He  wills  the  finite ; 
he  sets  it  before  himself  as  another  and  thereby  is 
made  another,  a  finite,  for  he  has  another  over  against 
himself.  This  being  another,  however,  is  the  contra- 
^  Philosophie  der  Religion,  second  edition  (1840),  Vol.  I,  p.  90. 


THE  REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  95 

diction  of  himself  with  himself,  and  hence  he  is  the 
finite  over  against  the  finite.  The  truth  is,  however, 
that  this  finiteness  is  only  an  appearance."  ^  "This 
existence  of  the  finite  must  not  continue  but  must  be 
put  an  end  to.  God  is  the  movement  toward  finiteness 
and  again  toward  himself  through  its  transcendence. 
In  the  ego,  when  it  abolishes  itself  as  finite,  God  re- 
turns to  himself,  and  is  only  God  in  that  he  thus  re- 
turns.   Without  the  world  God  is  not  God."  ^ 

Religion,  according  to  Hegel,  is  the  relation  of  the 
finite  spirit  to  the  infinite.  It  is  the  knowledge  which 
the  finite  spirit  has  of  the  infinite,  and  hence,  since  we 
are  but  moments  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Absolute, 
the  knowledge  which  the  infinite  spirit  has  of  itself. 
So  Hegel  calls  religion  both  "knowledge  of  God''  and 
"God's  self-consciousness." 

The  religious  consciousness  begins  with  feeling.  In 
feeling  God  is  immediately  given,  so  that  we  know  that 
he  is,  without  knowing  w^hat  he  is.  Feeling  by  itself, 
Hegel  says  in  opposition  to  Schleiermacher,  has  no 
content  and  is  of  no  value.  To  give  it  content  we  have 
to  think,  and  to  know  God  is  to  think  him,  not  merely 
to  feel  him.  At  its  highest  stage  religion  is  knowl- 
edge. "Feeling  may  have  the  most  various  content. 
We  have  a  feeling  of  right,  of  wrong,  of  God,  of  color, 
of  hatred,  of  enmity,  of  peace,  and  so  on.  There  ex- 
ists in  it  the  most  contradictory  content.  The  lowest 
as  well  as  the  highest  and  noblest  has  place  in  it.  .  .  . 
When  God  is  in  feeling  he  has  no  advantage  over  the 

*Ibid.,  p.  193. 
'Ibid,,  p.  194. 


96  THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

worst  thing,  but  there  grows  upon  the  same  ground 
the  most  royal  flower  beside  the  ugliest  weed."  ^  "Peo- 
ple often  appeal  to  their  feelings  when  they  have  no 
reasons.  To  a  man  who  does  thus  there  is  no  answer, 
for  with  the  appeal  to  one's  feelings  community  is  de- 
stroyed. When  dealing  with  thoughts  and  concep- 
tions, on  the  other  hand,  we  are  upon  common  ground, 
that  of  the  reason.  There  we  have  the  nature  of  the 
thing  before  us  and  can  come  to  an  understanding 
about  it,  for  we  submit  to  the  thing  and  agree  what 
it  is.  When,  however,  we  turn  to  the  feelings,  we 
leave  that  which  is  common  and  retire  into  the  sphere 
of  the  accidental.  In  this  sphere  everyone  makes  the 
matter  his  own  and  relates  it  to  his  particular  indi- 
viduality. When  one  says.  You  ought  to  have  such 
feelings,  the  other  can  answer,  I  have  them  not,  I  am 
not  made  so.  .  .  .  Moreover,  feeling  is  that  which 
man  has  in  common  with  the  brute.  It  is  animal  and 
sensuous.  And  hence,  when  that  which  is  right,  or 
virtue,  or  God,  is  shown  to  be  in  the  feelings,  it  is  the 
worst  way  to  prove  it.  God  is  essentially  in  thought. 
That  he  is  in  thought  only  through  thought  is  nat- 
urally suggested  by  the  fact  that  only  men  and  not 
brutes  have  religion."  ^ 

This  means  that  religion  at  its  highest  is  one  with 
philosophy.  The  truths  which  religion  has  in  the  form 
of  images  or  symbols,  drawn  from  finite  experience 
and  false  or  inadequate  when  taken  only  finitely,  phil- 
osophy views  in  their  true  place  as  elements  in  the  in- 

*  Ibid.,  p.  126. 
*Ibid.,  p.  127. 


THE   REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  97 

finite  consciousness  of  God.  To  interpret  all  things 
from  the  divine  point  of  view — >sub  specie  aeternitatis 
— this  is  the  aim  of  philosophy  and  of  religion  as  well. 

The  various  positive  religions,  according  to  Hegel, 
represent  stages  in  the  development  of  the  knowledge 
of  God.  All  of  them  contain  partial  truth  and  lead 
up  gradually  to  the  absolute  religion  or  Christianity. 
In  all  ages  God  has  been  manifesting  himself.  "To 
manifest  itself  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  spirit. 
A  spirit  which  does  not  manifest  itself  is  not  spirit. 
Men  say  that  God  created  the  world,  as  if  it  were  an 
act  that  happened  once  for  all  and  does  not  happen 
again;  as  if  it  were  something  that  might  or  might  not 
be;  as  if  God  might  manifest  himself  or  not;  as  if  it 
were  an  accidental,  arbitrary  matter,  not  belonging  to 
the  very  nature  of  God.  But  God  as  spirit  is  by  his 
very  nature  a  self -revealing  being.  He  does  not  cre- 
ate the  world  once  for  all,  but  is  the  eternal  creator, 
the  one  eternally  revealing  himself."  ^ 

In  Christianity  we  have  the  revelation  of  the  Abso- 
lute in  the  most  perfect  form.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  the  central  doctrine  of  Christianity,  represents 
the  threefold  process  of  the  divine  consciousness.  In 
the  Father  we  see  the  Absolute  in  its  original  oneness, 
in  the  Son  its  self-objectification,  in  the  Spirit  the  re- 
union of  the  two.  The  Son  differs  from  the  world  in 
being  eternal  and  supraphenomenal,  while  the  world  is 
only  temporal  and  spatial.  The  Christian  statement, 
God  is  love,  is  but  another  way  of  expressing  the 
same  process  of  the  divine  consciousness.    "The  Holy 

*Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  197. 


98  THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Spirit  is  eternal  love.  When  one  says  God  is  love, 
this  is  grandly  and  truly  said,  but  it  is  meaningless  to 
conceive  it  so  simply  without  analyzing  the  conception 
of  love.  For  love  is  a  distinction  of  two,  which,  how- 
ever, are  for  each  other  neither  distinct  nor  separate. 
Love  is  the  feeling  and  consciousness  of  this  identity, 
of  this  existence  outside  myself.  I  have  my  self- 
consciousness  not  in  myself  but  in  another.  .  .  .  This 
perception,  this  feeling,  this  knowledge  of  oneness,  is 
love.  God  is  love,  that  is  the  distinction  and  the  ne- 
gation of  the  distinction."  ^ 

Hegel  found  a  place  also  for  other  facts  and  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  as  for  instance  the  doctrine  of 
the  incarnation,  in  which  the  oneness  of  God  and  man 
is  shown.  The  principal  truth,  he  says,  "is  that  of  the 
oneness  of  divine  and  human  nature — God  become 
man."  ^  This  is  the  great  thing  in  connection  with 
Christianity.  Not  that  there  should  come  a  divine 
teacher  of  morality,  or  even  a  divine  teacher  of  this 
idea  of  unity,  as  if  representation  and  persuasion  were 
of  chief  importance,  but  that  there  should  be  the  im- 
mediate presence  and  certainty  of  divinity.  Becom- 
ing aware  through  the  incarnation  of  the  oneness  of 
God  and  man,  we  live  in  the  consciousness  of  it  and 
thus  are  freed  from  the  separateness  and  individuality 
in  which  evil  consists,  or  in  other  words  are  redeemed 
from  sin  and  reconciled  to  God.  ^ 

It  is  thus  not  an  accident  that  in  modern  theology 

*Ibid.,  p.  227. 
*Ibid.,  p.  208. 
•Cf.  ibid.,  p.  283. 


THE   REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  99 

the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  has  had  a  place  of 
prominence  unknown  since  the  time  of  the  old  Greek 
fathers.  It  is  widely  emphasized  to-day,  particularly 
in  Anglican  circles,  where  Hegelianism  is  still  very 
popular,  as  the  fundamental  Christian  truth,  and  a 
favorite  name  for  Christianity  among  Anglican  the- 
ologians is  "the  religion  of  the  incarnation." 

The  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ  were  also  re- 
interpreted by  Hegel  and  given  an  important  place  in 
his  religious  system.  ^  The  death  of  Christ  means  the 
complete  identification  of  the  divine  with  the  human. 
It  is  man's  nature  to  die,  and  in  dying  Christ  showed 
that  he  was  truly  man.  But  his  death  was  also  the 
death  of  God,  and  thus  it  revealed  again  the  oneness  of 
divinity  and  humanity  in  showing  limitation  and  nega- 
tion even  in  God.  But  the  negation  was  only  tempo- 
rary. Christ  did  not  remain  dead.  If  God  is  man, 
man  is  God.  A  moment  in  the  process  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  absolute,  he  overcame  all  weakness  and 
death,  thus  assuring  the  believer  of  his  own  ultimate 
victory. 

The  Church,  too,  had  its  place  in  Hegel's  reinter- 
pretation  of  Christianity.  Within  it  the  process  of 
reconciliation,  representatively  carried  on  in  the  incar- 
nation, death,  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  is  made  prac- 
tical in  the  lives  of  believers.  Through  the  cultus  God 
gives  himself  to  be  apprehended  by  the  worshiper 
and  becomes  immediately  present  to  his  conscious- 
ness. ^ 

^  Cf .  ibid.,  p.  295  ff. 
'  Cf .  ibid.,  p.  308  ff. 


lOO          THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

Thus  Hegel  claimed  that  his  system  was  in  com- 
plete accord  with  Christianity,  preserving  its  true  es- 
sence and  revealing  its  inner  significance.  In  how 
far  he  was  sincere  in  his  claim,  or  in  how  far  he  was 
influenced  by  the  desire  to  commend  his  philosophy  to 
men  of  conservative  tendencies,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
Like  many  contemporary  romanticists,  he  favored  con- 
servatism both  in  religion  and  in  politics,  and  his  phil- 
osophy of  the  Absolute  was  so  conceived  as  to  subordi- 
nate subjectivity  to  objectivity,  the  individual  to  the 
community.  He  began  as  a  student  of  theology,  and 
his  earliest  desire  was  to  show  the  rationality  of  Chris- 
tianity and  thus  restore  its  waning  prestige  with  think- 
ing men.  This  desire  never  left  him,  and  without 
doubt  accounts  at  least  in  part  for  his  permanent  in- 
terest in  Christian  doctrine  and  for  his  inclination  to 
reinterpret  it  in  the  light  of  his  own  matured  philoso- 
phy. Upon  its  rationality  he  always  insisted.  It  was 
not  a  religion  to  be  justified  only  by  an  appeal  to  feel- 
ing and  to  be  defended  only  by  abandoning  the  method 
of  strict  reasoning.  With  the  position  of  Jacobi,  as 
with  that  of  Schelling,  he  had  no  patience.  Religion 
is  knowledge,  and  Christianity  as  the  absolute  religion 
is  knowledge  in  the  highest  sense,  the  knowledge  of 
the  absolute  in  its  completest  self -revelation. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Hegelianism  proved  very 
attractive  to  Christian  theologians.  By  means  of  it 
many  of  them  found  it  possible  to  recover  much  of 
the  historic  system,  which  had  been  undermined  both 
by  rationalism  and  by  the  critical  philosophy,  and  to 
vindicate  it  against  all  assaults.    An  Hegelian  School 


THE  REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  101 

made  its  appearance  in  theolog-icat  circles,  and 'grew 
with  great  rapidity.  The  fortunes  of  ths.sjcho©!  c^t?r 
not  be  followed  here.  It  may-Giraply  be  said  that'it 
soon  divided  into  a  right  and  left  wing,  the  former 
conservative,  the  latter  radical  in  its  treatment  of  the 
Christian  system. 

One  question  at  issue  between  them  was  whether  the 
traditional  facts  of  Christian  history,  such  as  the  incar- 
nation and  resurrection  of  Christ,  which  Hegel  had 
made  the  symbols  of  great  and  eternal  truths,  were 
really  historical.  In  his  Lehen  Jesu,  published  in  1835, 
David  Friedrich  Strauss  set  forth  the  mythical  theory, 
according  to  which  Christ's  miracles  and  the  other 
supernatural  events  of  his  career  were  mere  embodi- 
ments of  ideas  of  the  Messiah  current  in  the  early 
Christian  communities.  The  incarnation  was  taken  to 
be  simply  an  ideal  representation  of  the  general  union 
of  God  and  man,  or  of  the  divinity  of  the  whole  human 
race.  The  predicates  commonly  ascribed  to  Christ 
really  belong  not  to  him,  but  to  ideal  humanity.  The 
net  result  of  the  controversy  caused  by  this  momen- 
tous book  was  to  undermine  confidence  in  the  Chris- 
tian character  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  and  in  its 
efficiency  as  a  means  of  defending  Christianity.  In- 
stead of  supporting  Christian  facts  and  doctrines  by 
revealing  their  inner  significance,  it  was  seen  to  dis- 
solve them  altogether.  The  consequence  was  that  many 
abandoned  Hegelianism  in  favor  of  Christianity,  while 
others  abandoned  Christianity  in  favor  of  Hegelian- 
ism, and  philosophy  and  religion,  which  had  seemed 
permanently  reconciled,  were  again  at  war. 


102         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Another,  quest-ion,  at  issue  between  the  two  wings 
was-  v/he.ther'  God  is  identical  with  the  world  process 
of '^evolution  and  \vholly  immanent  in  it,  or  whether  he 
also  transcends  it.  The  latter  was  maintained  by  theo- 
logians of  the  right  wing,  while  Strauss  and  others 
of  the  left  adopted  a  genuine  pantheism,  going  on  to 
complete  naturalism  ^  and  even  materialism.^ 

Meanwhile,  a  general  reaction  against  Hegelianism 
was  setting  in.  Its  inordinate  self-confidence  and  its 
claim  to  be  the  supreme  and  final  philosophy  before 
which  no  secrets  could  remain  permanently  hid  aroused 
impatience  and  scepticism.  Its  thoroughgoing  opti- 
mism, often  too  little  regardful  of  existing  evil  and 
misery,  bred  a  distrust  of  the  rationality  of  the  uni- 
verse, resulting  frequently  in  extreme  pessimism,  as  in 
Schopenhauer.  Its  a  priori  character  and  its  control- 
ling interest  in  the  Absolute  became  increasingly  dis- 
tasteful to  an  age  in  which  physical  science  was  making 
tremendous  advances  and  the  empirical  method  was 
finding  continually  new  vindication.  The  development 
of  historical  study,  for  which  Hegel  himself  had  done 
so  much,  also  proved  disastrous  to  the  Hegelian  sys- 
tem, as  it  revealed  the  artificiality  of  its  philosophy  of 
history  and  led  to  a  growing  distrust  of  the  method  of 
reading  the  past  in  the  light  of  general  laws  and  a 
priori  principles.  In  the  reaction  against  Hegelian- 
ism the  whole  of  post-Kantian  idealism  fell  under  a 
common  condemnation.     It  seemed  to  an  ever  larger 

^Cf.    Strauss:     Die   Christliche   Glauhenslehre   in   ihrer  ge- 
schichtlichen  Entwickelung,  1840  flF. 
*Cf.  Feuerbach:    Das  Wesen  des  Christ enthums,  1841. 


THE  REBIRTH    OF   SPECULATION  IO3 

number  of  thinkers  entirely  divorced  from  living  re- 
ality. In  fact,  the  era  of  the  great  speculative  systems 
was  over  and  was  already  succeeded  by  the  age  of  em- 
piricism and  positivism. 

But,  though  widely  discredited,  Hegelianism  still 
makes  its  influence  everywhere  felt  in  the  sphere  of 
religious  thought.  The  prevailing  monistic  tendency 
of  recent  generations,  of  which  I  shall  speak  more  par- 
ticularly in  the  chapter  on  Divine  Immanence,  the 
recognition  of  the  dynamic  rather  than  the  static  char- 
acter of  truth,  the  fondness  for  the  symbolic  interpre- 
tation of  Christian  doctrines,  the  inclination  to  recon- 
cile contradictions  and  overcome  differences  in  a 
higher  unity,  seen  most  strikingly  in  the  modern  move- 
ment for  church  unity  in  England  and  America — all 
these  are  due,  not  wholly  to  be  sure,  but  in  no  small 
part,  to  the  influence  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy.  Its 
speculative  spirit  on  the  other  hand  and  its  reading  of 
religion  in  intellectual  terms  find  scant  favor  to-day 
in  any  quarter. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   REHABILITATION   OF   FAITH 

Toward  the  close  of  his  famous  essay  on  miracles, 
published  in  1748,  Hume  remarked:  "Our  most  holy 
religion  is  founded  on  faith,  not  on  reason,  and  it  is 
a  sure  method  of  exposing  it  to  put  it  to  such  trial  as  it 
is  by  no  means  fitted  to  endure." 

The  words,  whatever  their  motive,  meant  a  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  common  rationalistic  position  ac- 
cepted in  his  day  by  both  deists  and  orthodox.  Ac- 
cording to  them  no  one  should  believe  anything  with- 
out good  and  adequate  reasons  for  his  belief.  But 
Hume's  remark  was  prophetic  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
rationalistic  school  in  religion  and  of  the  appearance 
of  a  new  spirit  and  attitude  which  became  very  com- 
mon in  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  remark  reminds  us  of  the  position  of  Occam 
and  other  schoolmen  of  the  late  Middle  Ages  with 
their  recognition  of  the  complete  divorce  of  reason  and 
faith.  The  truths  of  Christianity,  so  they  maintained, 
have  no  basis  in  human  reason;  some  of  them  indeed 
are  quite  irrational ;  but  they  are  to  be  accepted  on  the 
authority  of  the  Roman  Church.  They  might  have 
been  even  more  irrational  than  they  are  and  yet  it 

104 


THE    REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  IO5 

would  be  our  duty  to  accept  them  if  taught  by  the 
Church. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
Hume  wrote  the  words  quoted  above,  the  notion  of 
faith's  independence  of  reason  was  generally  regarded 
as  the  greatest  possible  scandal,  but  it  has  come  again 
into  favor  largely  as  a  consequence  of  the  sceptical 
development  of  that  century. 

The  repudiation  of  dependence  upon  reason  in  re- 
ligious things,  voiced  in  Hume's  remark,  found  in  the 
great  evangelical  movement  of  the  eighteenth  century 
its  most  striking  and  influential  expression.  English 
evangelicalism  was  closely  connected  with  German 
pietism  and  represented  the  same  general  interpreta- 
tion of  Christianity,  but  it  arose  under  other  conditions 
and  faced  a  different  religious  situation.  As  a  conse- 
quence its  emphasis  was  in  some  respects  unlike  that  of 
the  older  movement,  and  though  its  effects  upon  moral- 
ity and  practical  religion  were  similar,  its  place  in  the 
development  of  Christian  thought  was  altogether  di- 
verse. 

German  pietism  faced,  as  we  have  seen,  a  rigid  and 
uncompromising  scholasticism,  and  though  orthodox 
in  its  doctrinal  teachings,  it  changed  the  emphasis  from 
theology  to  life  and  so  broke  the  hold  of  the  traditional 
system  and  promoted  its  rapid  disintegration.  Eng- 
lish evangelicalism,  on  the  contrary,  arose  at  a  time 
when  rationalism  was  widely  dominant,  and  when  the 
old  orthodoxy  was  a  neglected  and  discredited  thing. 
The  chief  foe  of  true  religion  was  not  a  cold  and  bar- 
ren scholasticism,  but,  as  it  seemed  to  Wesley  and  his 


I06         THE  RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

followers,  a  rationalism  which  had  undermined  the  old 
faith  and  substituted  human  pride  and  self-sufficiency 
for  the  conviction  of  sin  and  the  sense  of  need.  Eng- 
lish evangelicalism  therefore  bore  from  the  start  the 
aspect  of  a  conservative  reaction,  endeavoring  to  over- 
throw rationalism,  the  typical  modern  movement  of  the 
\J'  day,  and  to  restore  the  earlier  faith  which  it  had  de- 
stroyed. 

The  contrast  between  evangelicalism  and  rationalism 
appears  most  sharply  in  connection  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  fall.  The  tendency  everywhere  in  rationalism 
was  to  minimize  that  doctrine  and  to  emphasize  the 
moral  and  intellectual  ability  of  the  natural  man.  On 
the  other  hand,  according  to  Wesley,  "The  fall  of  man 
is  the  very  foundation  of  revealed  religion.  If  this  be 
taken  away,  the  Christian  system  is  subverted  nor  will 
it  deserve  so  honorable  an  appellation  as  that  of  a  cun- 
ningly devised  fable."  ^  With  this  judgment  all  of  the 
Evangelicals  were  in  hearty  agreement,  and  recog- 
nized, as  Wesley  did,  the  fundamental  character  of 
the  difference  between  themselves  and  their  rationalis- 
tic contemporaries.  With  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  was 
wrapped  up  the  whole  traditional  system  of  super- 
natural redemption,  and  through  the  influence  of  the 
Evangelicals  it  was  rehabilitated  and  given  its  old  place 
of  prominence. 

But  the  evangelical  revolt  against  rationalism  in- 
volved more  than  the  mere  restoration  of  doctrines  re- 
jected by  the  rationalists.  It  led  to  a  general  distrust 
of  the  human  reason  as  an  organ  of  religious  truth  and 
*  Wesley's  Works  (New  York,  1827),  Vol.  I,  p.  176. 


THE    REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  I07 

to  the  recognition  of  another  faculty  altogether,  a 
faculty  of  perception,  by  which  spiritual  realities  are 
apprehended  as  directly  as  physical  phenomena  by  the 
bodily  senses.  This  faculty  Wesley  called  faith.  It  is 
the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  and  belongs  only  to  the  regen- 
erate. The  natural  man  is  altogether  without  it,  and 
hence  it  is  quite  impossible  for  him  to  see  and  under- 
stand the  spiritual  truth  revealed  to  the  Christian  be- 
liever alone.  "It  is  necessary  that  you  have  the  hear- 
ing ear,  and  the  seeing  eye,  emphatically  so  called ;  that 
you  have  a  new  class  of  senses  opened  in  your  soul,  not 
depending  on  organs  of  flesh  and  blood,  to  be  the  evi- 
dence of  things  not  seen,  as  your  bodily  senses  are  of 
visible  things ;  to  be  the  avenues  to  the  invisible  world, 
to  discern  spiritual  objects,  and  to  furnish  you  with 
ideas  of  what  the  outward  'eye  hath  not  seen,  neither 
the  ear  heard.'  And  till  you  have  these  internal  senses, 
till  the  eyes  of  your  understanding  are  opened,  you  can 
have  no  proper  apprehension  of  divine  things,  no  just 
idea  of  them.'*  ^ 

Wesley's  conception  of  faith  meant  the  completest 
possible  break  with  the  current  position.  It  had  been 
contended  that  religion  must  be  rational  like  everything 
else  offering  itself  for  acceptance,  and  to  be  ra- 
tional meant  to  appeal  to  the  reason  not  simply  of  the 
regenerate  but  of  the  natural  man  as  well.  Both  the 
opponents  of  Christianity  and  its  apologists  were  in 
agreement  upon  this  matter.  If  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity were  not  rational,  it  could  not  possibly  have 

^An  Earnest  Appeal  to  Men  of  Reason  and  Religion:  Works, 
Vol.  VIII,  p.  195. 


I08         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

come  from  God.  The  Evangelical  movement  really 
represented  an  abandonment  of  this  position  in  spite  of 
Wesley's  frequent  insistence  upon  the  rationality  of 
Christianity.  It  meant  the  dethronement  of  reason 
from  its  place  of  supremacy  and  the  appeal  to  another 
part  of  man's  nature  for  ultimate  assurance  and  satis- 
faction in  religious  things. 

The  persistence  of  the  evangelical  notion  of  faith  is 
well  illustrated  by  the  following  passages  from  the 
work  of  a  modern  Anglican  divine,  Professor  Swete 
of  Cambridge:  "Faith  and  Reason  have  no  quarrel 
with  one  another.  One  is  the  supernatural  faculty 
which  answers  to  the  revelation  of  God  and  of  the 
spiritual  order;  the  other  is  the  natural  faculty  by 
which  we  judge  of  natural  things.  Both  are  from  the 
Light  which  lighteth  every  man,  specially  them  that 
believe.  Faith  indeed  transcends  reason,  but  the  tran- 
scendence ought  not  to  suggest  conflict ;  for  when  rea- 
son has  reached  its  limit,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  have 
recourse  to  the  higher  gift  which  supplies  thought  with 
'things  which  eye  saw  not  and  ear  heard  not,  and 
which  entered  not  into  the  heart  of  man.'  "  ^  "In  the 
presence  of  spiritual  truth  the  natural  powers  are  in- 
operative until  they  are  quickened  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
Who  inspires  faith.  The  'natural'  man  can  judge  of 
things  that  belong  to  his  own  order ;  the  'spiritual'  man 
has  over  and  above  his  natural  faculties  a  supernatural 
gift  by  which  he  'judges  all  things.'  "  ^ 

^  Faith  in  Its  Relation   to  Creed,   Thought  and  Life   (1895), 
p.  26. 
'Ibid.,  p.  32. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF   FAITH  I09 

The  faculty  of  faith  of  which  Wesley  spoke  is 
rooted  in  feeling.  The  experience  of  conversion  is  an 
experience  of  joy  and  exaltation  in  the  consciousness 
of  a  changed  nature.  In  this  experience  the  presence 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  immediately  given, 
and  faith,  the  new  spiritual  sense,  is  the  organ  of  com- 
munication between  the  redeemed  believer  and  the 
Spirit.  It  has  to  do  primarily  with  personal  com- 
munion, not  with  the  apprehension  of  truth,  and  hence, 
though  it  may  have  intellectual  elements,  it  is  much 
more  than  a  merely  intellectual  faculty. 

It  is  true  that  Wesley  represented  it  as  the  organ 
by  which  we  come  to  a  knowledge  of  various  truths 
inaccessible  to  the  natural  man,  but  his  actual  method 
of  procedure  was  to  look  for  such  truths  in  the  Bible 
and  accept  them  on  its  authority.  What  faith  does 
therefore  is  not  to  perceive  revealed  truths,  but  the 
revealer  of  them;  in  other  words  it  enables  a  man  to 
recognize  the  Spirit  of  God  and  to  have  the  assur- 
ance of  his  presence.  Herein  lies  the  real  significance 
of  the  evangelical  conception  of  faith,  even  though 
Wesley  himself  in  his  hostility  to  the  rationalism  and 
scepticism  of  his  day  did  not  fully  realize  it.  In  the 
matter  of  religious  truth  and  our  apprehension  of  it, 
he  simply  went  back  to  the  old  position  of  the  abso- 
lute authority  of  the  Bible.  Instead  of  leaving  every 
Christian  man  to  discover  such  truth  as  the  Spirit 
might  reveal  to  him  personally  he  insisted  that  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  must  be  recognized  and  its 
teachings  accepted  without  question.  But  for  assur- 
ance he  depended  upon  faith,  not  reason,  the  experi- 


no         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ence  of  the  presence  of  the  Divine,  not  the  recognition 
of  the  soundness  of  a  logical  conclusion.  The  Evan- 
gelicals themselves  were  too  little  clear  in  this  matter, 
and  carried  with  them  too  much  baggage  from  an 
outworn  theological  system,  to  make  the  break  with 
the  rationalistic  position  complete  and  to  bring  a  new 
age  in  religion.  They  recognized  that  religion  was 
something  more  than  a  mere  system  of  truths,  but 
they  made  it  include  the  latter,  and  so  the  old  notion 
lived  on  to  the  serious  detriment  of  the  new.  But 
their  influence  counted  for  much,  and  was  one  of  the 
most  important  factors  in  promoting  the  coming  of 
the  modern  age. 

Shortly  after  the  rise  of  English  Evangelicalism 
there  began  a  reaction  against  rationalism  of  an  al- 
together different  type.  Already  by  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau  in  France  a  crusade  had  been  started  against 
the  dominant  ideals  of  the  age.  His  writings  mark 
an  epoch  not  only  in  the  history  of  literature  but  in 
the  history  of  thought  and  culture  as  well.  Into  the 
cool,  abstract,  rationalistic  atmosphere  of  the  day  was 
thrown  the  flaming  spark  of  his  passionate  genius,  op- 
posing everything  that  the  eighteenth  century,  in  its 
complacent  self-satisfaction  as  the  crowning  century 
of  history  and  the  flower  of  the  world's  culture,  held 
most  dear.  Sentiment  instead  of  reason,  passion  in- 
stead of  self-control,  love  of  nature  instead  of  civiliza- 
tion, contempt  for  all  the  amenities  of  society  and  at- 
tainments of  human  progress  upon  which  the  century 
chiefly  prided  itself — seldom  has  history  seen  a  greater 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  III 

anomaly  than  Rousseau  in  the  midst  of  a  period  and 
a  people  dominated  by  Voltaire. 

The  keynote  of  his  career  as  a  writer  was  struck 
in  his  earliest  publication,  a  prize  essay  on  the  theme 
Has  the  Revival  of  the  Sciences  and  Arts  Contributed 
to  the  Purification  of  Morals?  in  which  he  defended 
the  negative  with  an  ardor  and  eloquence  that  capti- 
vated half  the  world  and  angered  the  other  half  but 
astonished  everybody.  Rousseau  owed  something  to 
others  who  had  gone  before  him,  particularly  to  the 
encyclopedist  Diderot,  but  he  owed  most  to  his  tem- 
perament and  training,  the  temperament  of  a  romanti- 
cist and  a  training,  or  lack  of  training,  fitted  only  to 
emphasize  what  was  most  emotional  and  least  con- 
ventional in  him.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he  made  a  sen- 
sation and  outraged  the  leaders  of  his  generation,  but 
it  is  no  wonder  also  that  he  fascinated  and  compelled 
the  adherence  of  an  ever  growing  multitude,  especially 
of  the  younger  generation,  both  in  his  own  and  for- 
eign lands. 

The  influences  started  by  Rousseau  were  promoted 
a  generation  later  by  Chateaubriand,  and  out  of  them 
grew  the  romantic  school  in  literature,  specifically  so 
called,  which  was  dominant  in  France  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  numbered  among 
its  leaders  such  men  as  Lamartine,  de  Vigny,  and  Vic- 
tor Hugo.  In  Germany  the  movement  included 
Goethe,  Novalis,  Tieck,  the  two  Schlegels,  and  many 
others.  In  England  romanticism  had  its  most  influ- 
ential exponents  in  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Shelley, 
and  Byron.    Everywhere  the  tendencies  were  similar, 


112         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

though  the  forms  in  which  they  appeared  varied  witli 
differing  racial  and  individual  temperaments.  Every- 
where there  was  love  of  nature,  affected  if  not  real, 
impatience  with  the  coldness  and  barrenness  of  ra- 
tionalism, emotionalism,  subjectivity,  and  individual 
self-expression,  often  in  the  most  untrammeled  forms. 

Romanticism  wrought  a  profound  revolution  in  the 
culture  of  the  western  world,  and  its  influence  is  still 
widely  felt.  It  was  primarily  a  literary  movement, 
but  it  affected  all  the  arts  in  greater  or  less  degree,  as 
well  as  philosophy,  religion,  and  even  science.  Almost 
as  truly  as  the  eighteenth  century  is  called  the  century 
of  rationalism,  the  nineteenth  may  be  called  the  cen- 
tury of  romanticism. 

It  was  in  Germany  that  the  spirit  which  found  so 
notable  an  expression  in  the  romantic  school  of  litera- 
ture first  made  itself  felt  in  the  religious  sphere.  An 
interesting  illustration  of  what  it  meant  in  that  sphere 
is  the  attitude  of  the  so-called  Magician  of  the  North, 
V  George  Friedrich  Hamann  of  Konigsberg.  A  fellow 
townsman  and  friend  of  the  philosopher  Kant,  his 
position  was  in  extremest  possible  contrast  not  only  to 
the  dogmatism  and  rationalism  of  the  age,  but  also  to 
the  new  critical  philosophy.  To  analyze  is  to  lose  the 
real  essence  of  a  thing;  to  distinguish  is  to  destroy. 
No  clear  knowledge  of  the  soul  and  its  faculties  is 
possible.  It  is  a  mass  of  contradictions  and  can  be 
grasped  only  in  feeling. 

Hamann  felt  the  influence  not  only  of  Rousseau 
but  also  of  Hume,  with  whose  writings  he  was  very 
familiar,  but  he  was  a  mystic  as  Hume  was  not,  and 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  II3 

from  the  latter's  philosophical  scepticism  he  found 
refuge  in  the  immediate  apprehension  of  reality.  We 
experience  only  what  is  directly  given  us.  We 
have  given  us,  however,  not  merely  physical  facts  by 
nature  but  spiritual  facts  by  revelation.  Or  rather 
both  are  equally  revealed  to  us,  and  the  former  as  well 
as  the  latter  can  be  apprehended  only  by  faith. 
Nature  and  the  supernatural  are  truly  one.  The  tradi- 
tional separation  of  the  two  is  fallacious.  The  activ- 
ity of  God  cannot  be  discriminated  from  that  of  na- 
ture ;  nor  can  the  divine  be  set  apart  from  the  human. 
Not  distinction,  but  unity,  is  the  important  thing  here 
as  everywhere. 

Christianity  was  the  only  religion  that  satisfied  Ha- 
mann  because  it  stood  for  the  oneness  of  God  and 
man,  and  in  its  most  mysterious  and  irrational  doc- 
trines he  found  his  chief  delight.  Yet  he  was  not  at  all 
an  orthodox  Christian  in  the  ordinary  sense.  On  the 
contrary  he  was  a  radical  at  many  points,  though  not 
at  all  a  rationalist,  as  most  of  the  radicals  of  the  cen- 
tury were.  The  primitive  spirit,  the  unquestioning  po- 
etic faith  of  childhood,  the  directness  of  unreflecting 
vision,  the  immediacy  of  spiritual  knowledge — these 
he  chiefly  emphasized.  He  was  not  a  systematic 
thinker  or  writer,  and  his  influence  was  felt  only  in 
a  limited  circle  and  chiefly  through  personal  contacts, 
but  he  did  much  to  inspire  and  give  direction  to  the 
genius  of  Herder,  Goethe,  and  many  others. 

An  attitude  similar  to  Hamann's  defined  itself 
much  more  clearly  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  in  a 


114        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

remarkable  philosophical  movement  in  which  the  Ger- 
man philosopher  Friedrich  Heinrich  Jacobi  was  the 
principal  figure.  Jacobi's  primary  interest  was  cer- 
tainty and  it  was  in  his  search  for  some  basis  of  as- 
surance that  he  developed  his  faith  philosophy,  or 
philosophy  of  feeling,  which  was  of  much  greater  his- 
toric significance  than  most  of  his  contemporaries  were 
willing  to  admit.  By  rational  demonstration,  accord- 
ing to  Jacobi,  we  can  never  get  beyond  the  conditioned, 
— the  phenomenal  world  of  cause  and  effect.  The  phil- 
osophy of  the  understanding  can  do  no  more  than 
explain  phenomena  in  terms  of  causation.  It  can- 
not reach  underlying  or  antecedent  reality;  it  cannot 
reach  being  or  existence,  but  only  appearances.  With 
Kant  he  recognized  that  the  understanding  is  unable 
to  carry  us  back  of  phenomena  to  the  thing-in-itself, 
and  in  a  very  acute  criticism  of  Kant's  philosophy 
he  maintained  that  its  logical  result,  far  from  Kant's 
intention  as  it  was,  was  thoroughgoing  idealism  and 
solipsism,  or  the  denial  of  all  reality  outside  the  think- 
ing self. 

Jacobi  himself  was  a  convinced  realist  and  such  a 
result  was  intolerable  to  him.  If  reality  could  not  be 
reached  by  the  philosophy  of  the  understanding,  it 
must  be  reached  in  some  other  way.  The  way  which 
he  finally  took  was  that  of  feeling,  or  faith.  We  are 
immediately  certain  of  the  existence  of  an  outer  world, 
including  men  and  things.  It  is  incapable  of  proof, 
for  to  prove  means  to  deduce  from  something  that  is 
more  certain.  So  far  as  we  can  show,  our  sensations 
may  be  self-created  and  point  to  nothing  beyond.    But 


THE    REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  II 5 

we  are  none  the  less  secure  in  our  conviction  that  there 
is  an  external  world  with  which  we  are  in  communi- 
cation; in  fact  we  are  as  sure  of  it  as  of  our  own  ex- 
istence. Though  we  cannot  prove  it,  we  believe  it,  and 
our  belief  is  as  much  to  be  relied  upon,  indeed  even 
more  to  be  relied  upon  than  any  conclusion  reached  by 
logical  demonstration.  There  must  be  some  kind  of 
direct  and  immediate  certainty  which  precedes  scien- 
tific knowledge,  or  knowledge  derived  from  proof,  for 
all  proof  involves  something  requiring  no  proof.  Sec- 
ond hand  or  derived  knowledge  presupposes  a  first 
hand  and  immediate,  and  the  latter  is  superior  to  the 
former.  The  great  fault  of  rationalism,  according  to 
Jacobi,  was  to  believe  only  what  can  be  proved.  True 
philosophy  consists  in  assuming  a  reality  which  can- 
not be  proved  and  then  experiencing  it. 

In  tracing  the  history  of  rationalistic  philosophy,  or 
the  philosophy  of  demonstration,  Jacobi  was  led  to 
make  a  careful  study  of  Spinoza,  and  his  work  Ueher 
die  Lehre  des  Spinoza,  published  in  1785,  did  much  to 
turn  the  attention  of  his  contemporaries  to  the  great 
Jewish  philosopher.  Jacobi  recognized  Spinoza's  sys- 
tem, with  its  absolute  determinism,  as  the  most  perfect 
fruit  of  the  demonstrative  method  in  philosophy,  and 
he  took  it  as  the  supreme  example  of  what  such  a 
method  must  inevitably  lead  to.  Demonstration  pre- 
supposes necessity.  Only  as  one  thing  necessarily  fol- 
lows another,  or  is  necessarily  involved  in  it,  can  it 
be  deduced  therefrom  by  the  reason.  If  there  be  free- 
dom or  chance  anywhere,  demonstration  fails  us,  and 
only  observation  or  experience  can  reveal  the  truth. 


Il6        THE    RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

But  Jacobi  maintained  that  absolute  determinism  is 
refuted  by  our  consciousness  of  freedom.  We  know 
that  we  are  free  in  the  same  immediate  way  that  we 
know  there  is  an  external  world.  It  is  impossible  to 
prove  it,  but  we  feel  it  and  practice  it  and  are  as  sure 
of  it  as  of  anything  we  can  prove.  It  is  an  original 
datum  of  consciousness,  and  there  is  nothing  more  cer- 
tain to  which  to  appeal  in  its  support.  Man  belongs 
to  two  worlds — the  world  of  nature  and  the  world 
of  spirit — and  he  is  as  immediately  conscious  of  the 
one  as  of  the  other.  In  the  one  necessity  reigns;  in 
the  other  freedom.  A  part  of  nature  and  subject  to 
its  laws,  he  is  yet  superior  to  it  and  controls  and  em- 
ploys it  for  his  own  purposes.  Determinism  is  there- 
fore refuted  by  experience,  which  has  more  weight 
than  all  rational  demonstration,  and  the  conclusions 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  understanding  are  shown  to 
be  false. 

The  outcome  of  the  demonstrative  method  in  phil- 
osophy, according  to  Jacobi,  is  not  simply  absolute 
determinism,  or  fatalism,  but  also  atheism,  or  nihilism. 
We  may  be  led  by  it  to  the  existence  of  an  all-inclusive 
substance,  as  in  Spinozism,  or  to  the  denial  of  all  ob- 
jective existence,  as  in  a  logically  consistent  Kantian- 
ism ;  but  no  place  is  left  for  God,  that  is  for  free  cre- 
ative intelligence.  But  this,  too,  Jacobi  maintained,  is 
given  in  experience.  We  cannot  prove  the  existence 
of  God.  Kant's  exposure  of  the  weakness  of  the  tra- 
ditional theistic  arguments  and  his  demonstration  of 
the  impossibility  of  proving  God,  freedom  and  immor- 
tality by  the  theoretical  reason,  Jacobi  regarded  as  con- 


THE   REHABILITATION   OF    FAITH  11/ 

elusive.  But  we  may  have  the  same  irresistible  cer- 
tainty of  God's  existence  that  we  have  of  our  own 
freedom  and  of  the  reality  of  an  external  world. 

But  how  can  this  be  ?  Here  we  come  upon  the  most 
difficult  and  obscure  part  of  Jacobi's  philosophy,  but 
the  part  which  he  was  most  interested  in,  and  which 
most  directly  concerns  us  here.  Our  certainty  of  God's 
existence,  according  to  Jacobi,  is  not  the  result  of  a 
line  of  argument,  a  mere  conclusion  from  data  given 
in  experience,  it  is  the  fruit  of  immediate  observation. 
"It  had  become  evident,  and  must  be  clear  to  every 
unprejudiced  mind  who  looked  more  deeply  into 
things,  that  these  truths  [God,  freedom  and  immor- 
tality] were  either  to  be  accepted  on  the  immediate 
authority  of  the  reason  [Vernunft],  whose  knowledge 
is  wholly  without  proofs,  mysterious,  higher,  and  in- 
dependent of  all  indicia,  or  were  to  be  rejected  as 
empty  deceit.''  ^ 

We  are  endowed  not  only  with  the  faculty  of  sense 
perception,  but  also  with  a  spiritual  faculty  by  which 
we  directly  and  at  first  hand  perceive  God  and  spirit- 
ual realities.  This  reminds  us  of  the  evangelical  con- 
ception of  faith  Indeed,  the  spiritual  faculty  assumed 
by  Jacobi  was  as  much  a  faculty  of  direct  vision  as 
was  the  faith  of  which  Wesley  spoke.  But  it  differed 
from  the  latter  in  being  natural,  not  supernatural,  an 
endowment  shared  by  all  men  and  not  confined  to  those 
born  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Jacobi,  it  should  be  said,  was  not  only  a  realist  but 

^  Von  den  gottlichen  Ding  en  und  ihrer  Offenbarung:    Jacobi's 
S'dmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  367. 


Il8         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

also  an  empiricist,  demanding  immediate  experience  as 
the  only  adequate  basis  for  the  assurance  of  reality. 
And  herein  lay  the  chief  significance  of  his  philosophy. 
For  demonstration  he  substituted  experience,  thus 
breaking  with  philosophical  rationalism  and  antici- 
pating the  scientific  attitude  of  the  modern  age.  It  is 
true  that  the  experience  to  which  Jacobi  appealed  was 
not  universally  recognized  as  valid,  nor  was  the  ex- 
istence of  an  organ  of  spiritual  knowledge,  such  as  he 
assumed,  allowed  by  everybody,  but  the  tendency  of  his 
philosophy  is  clear  enough  nevertheless. 

According  to  Jacobi  we  cannot  find  God  in  nature. 
There  mechanical  causation  reigns,  and  science  is  en- 
tirely right  in  treating  nature  as  self -sufficient  and  re- 
fusing to  operate  with  the  assumption  that  there  is 
a  God.  To  deal  with  nature  in  any  other  way  is  to 
make  science  impossible  and  to  put  ignorance  and 
folly  in  place  of  knowledge  and  understanding.  Na- 
ture conceals  God,  but  he  is  revealed  in  man,  who  by 
his  free  and  hence  supernatural  will  conquers  nature 
and  controls  it.  ''Nature  hides  God  because  it  reveals 
everywhere  only  fate,  an  unbroken  chain  of  merely 
efficient  causes  without  beginning  and  end,  excluding 
with  a  like  necessity  both  providence  and  contingency. 
.  .  .  Man  reveals  God,  inasmuch  as  he  raises  himself 
above  nature  in  his  spirit,  and  by  virtue  of  this  spirit 
sets  himself  over  against  nature  as  a  power  indepen- 
dent of  it  and  unconquerable  by  it,  battles  with  it, 
overcomes  it,  and  rules  it.  When  a  man  has  a  living 
faith  in  this  indwelling  power  which  is  superior  to  na- 
ture, he  believes  in  God ;  he  feels,  he  experiences  him. 


THE    REHABILITATION    OF   FAITH  JI9 

When  he  does  not  believe  in  such  an  indwelling  power, 
he  has  no  faith  in  God ;  everywhere  he  sees  and  experi- 
ences mere  nature,  necessity,  fate."  ^  The  faculty  of 
spiritual  perception  is  thus  a  faculty  of  self-conscious- 
ness which  looks  within,  not  without,  and  finds  God  in 
finding  oneself  as  a  free  being,  or  real  person. 

At  first  Jacobi  called  the  faculty  by  which  we  per- 
ceive God  and  the  world  of  spiritual  realities  "Glaube" 
or  "Faith."  But  later,  with  the  evident  desire  of  giv- 
ing it  philosophical  standing,  he  added  the  name  "Ver- 
nunff  or  "Reason,"  distinguishing  it  from  the  logical 
faculty  which  he  called  "Verstand"  or  "Understand- 
ing." Kant  had  also  distinguished  between  the  two, 
but  his  distinction  was  very  different  from  Jacobi's. 
With  the  assumption  of  a  faculty  of  direct  vision,  by 
which  we  may  perceive  God  and  spiritual  realities,  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do.  Jacobi' s  Platonic  use  of 
the  word  reason  was  unfortunate,  for  it  tended  to 
obscure  his  real  position.  In  the  common  terminology 
of  his  day,  reason  was  as  much  a  logical  faculty  as 
understanding,  and  its  use  instead  of  faith  made  his 
meaning  the  more  difBcult  of  comprehension.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  though  he  employed  the  word  Reason 
for  his  higher  faculty  of  direct  perception,  he  set  it 
over  against  the  reason  as  commonly  understood,  and 
maintained  that  the  latter  cannot  reach  God  or  spirit- 
ual realities  of  any  kind.  Only  by  immediate  percep- 
tion can  we  apprehend  such  objects,  but  the  immediate 
perception  of  them  gives  us  the  highest  kind  of  cer- 
tainty of  their  reality.  "As  the  reality  which  reveals 
*Ibid.,  p.  425. 


120         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

itself  to  our  outer  senses  needs  no  guarantor,  inas- 
much as  it  is  itself  the  strongest  witness  to  its  truth, 
so  the  reality  which  reveals  itself  to  that  inner  sense, 
which  we  call  reason,  needs  no  guarantor.  It  too  is 
itself  and  alone  the  strongest  witness  of  its  truth. 
Man  necessarily  believes  his  senses  and  necessarily  be- 
lieves his  reason,  and  there  is  no  higher  certainty  than 
the  certainty  of  such  belief."  ^ 

Although  belief  gives  us  the  certainty  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  world  of  spiritual  realities,  Jacobi  insisted 
that  this  certainty  is  only  that  of  feeling  and  must  not 
be  translated  into  the  terms  of  clear  and  definite  or 
scientific  knowledge.  We  are  immediately  aware  of 
our  freedom,  but  we  cannot  reconcile  it  with  our  ex- 
istence in  a  physical  world,  where  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect  is  in  control,  and  where  necessity  reigns. 
We  are  immediately  aware  that  there  is  a  God,  but 
we  cannot  define  or  describe  him,  or  set  forth  in  scien- 
tific form  his  nature  and  attributes.  He  remains  wholly 
mysterious  and  unapproachable  to  our  understanding. 
**The  way  in  which  the  reason  apprehends  this  reality 
is  not  revealed  to  the  understanding.  In  the  latter 
there  is  reflected  only  the  confidence  of  the  reason,  and 
an  unconquerable  feeling  takes  the  place  of  percep- 
tion. When  the  effort  is  made  to  transform  this  feel- 
ing, these  invisible  visions  or  intuitions,  into  visible 
images,  or  to  make  of  the  first  hand  certainty,  which  in 
default  of  a  better  word  we  call  faith,  a  mere  second 
hand  certainty,  of  an  unconditioned  a  conditioned  con- 

^  David  Hume  iiber  den  Glauben:    Jacobi's  Sdmmtliche  Werke, 
Vol.  II,  p.  107  ff. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  121 

viction,  there  arises  in  the  former  case  fanaticism,  in 
the  latter  empty  formalism,  an  impossible  philosophy 
through  mere  logic.**  ^ 

Jacobi  had  many  followers,  the  most  important  of 
whom  were  the  philosopher  Fries  and  the  theologian 
DeWette.  In  his  Neue  Kritik  der  Vernunft  (published 
in  1807),  the  former  says :  "For  a  long  time  all  phil- 
osophy has  been  controlled  by  the  notion  that  every- 
thing must  be  proved,  if  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  true. 
The  effort  was  made  to  prove  an  eternal  reality  of 
things,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  freedom  of  the 
will,  and  the  existence  of  God  from  something  that 
was  not  eternal,  nor  free,  nor  divine,  but  was  supposed 
to  have  been  already  demonstrated.  We  can  easily  see 
that  this  endeavor  was  entirely  misplaced.  The  truth 
of  what  we  have  to  prove  must  already  be  implicit  in 
the  premise  from  which  we  take  our  departure.  Proof 
gives  us  nothing  new,  but  only  makes  the  matter 
clearer.  But  how  can  eternity,  freedom  and  God  be 
in  the  finite  premises  from  which  we  wish  to  prove 

*  Von  den  Gditlichen  Ding  en:  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  Ill, 
p.  441.  In  connection  with  Jacobi  reference  may  also  be  made 
to  the  intellectual  intuitionalism  of  Schelling,  who  at  bottom 
agreed  with  Jacobi  in  spite  of  his  sharp  polemic  against  him;  to 
the  irrationalism  of  Schopenhauer,  who  maintained  that  the  real 
essence  of  things — the  underlying  will — can  be  grasped  only  in 
the  immediate  intuition  of  self-consciousness;  and  to  one  of 
the  most  notable  phenomena  of  our  day,  the  philosophy  of 
Henri  Bergson,  who  insists  that  not  by  reflective  reason,  but 
only  by  intuition,  which  is  akin  to  instinct  rather  than  intelli- 
gence, can  we  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  and  apprehend  life 
in  its  unity  and  continuity. 


122         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

them?  God,  freedom  and  eternity  are  ultimate  condi- 
tions of  our  knowledge,  out  of  which  we  can  prove 
many  things,  but  which  are  themselves  subject  to  no 
proof.  We  must  therefore  entirely  abandon  the  pre- 
supposition that  everything  can  be  proved."  ^  x\nd 
in  his  Wissen,  Glaiihe  und  Ahndung,  of  1805,  he 
says,  "The  world  under  natural  law  is  the  only  thing 
about  which  we  know;  to  the  eternal  we  attain  only 
through  faith;  but  this  faith  we  connect  necessarily 
with  our  knowledge  of  the  temporal  when  we  recog- 
nize our  existence  in  both  worlds  and  assume  that  our 
will,  which  appears  in  our  inner  nature,  is  yet  at  the 
same  time  free.  It  is  thus  clear  that  we  pass  from 
knowledge  to  faith  through  the  consciousness  of  our 
freedom.  Our  meaning,  however,  is  not  that  we  are 
able  from  this  self -consciousness,  out  of  the  mere  idea 
of  the  freedom  of  the  will  and  moral  obligation,  to 
draw  a  proof,  whether  speculative  or  moral,  of  the 
reality  of  the  eternal  good  in  general,  or  of  the  ex- 
istence of  God;  but  on  the  contrary  through  it  we  only 
uncover  in  ourselves  the  heart  of  our  consciousness 
which  expresses  itself  immediately  in  the  belief  in  the 
highest  good.  We  set  this  belief  in  the  highest  good 
directly  over  against  knowledge  and  take  it  then  as  a 
mere  consequence  that  we  who  find  ourselves  in  both 
worlds  can  regard  our  knowledge  only  as  an  appear- 
ance of  the  eternal  itself."  ^ 

While  Fries  accepted  the  essence  of  Jacobi's  faith 

*  Second  edition  (1829),  Vol.  I,  p.  337  ff. 
^Wissen,  Glaube  und  Ahndung,  edited  by  L.  Nelson   (1905), 
p.  61  ff. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  I23 

philosophy,  he  yet  regarded  himself  as  a  disciple  of 
Kant,  and  hence  was  careful  to  insist  that  we  do  not 
know  objective  reality,  either  material  or  spiritual,  as 
it  is  in  itself,  but  only  as  it  appears  to  us.  We  know 
that  spiritual  objects  exist  corresponding  to  our  neces- 
sary ideas  (whose  necessity,  like  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury,  Fries  deduced  from  their  universality),  as 
we  know  that  natural  objects  exist  corresponding  to 
the  phenomena  of  sense  perception.  But  we  cannot 
know  them  in  themselves  in  the  one  case  any  more 
than  in  the  other.  In  the  recognition  of  this  fact,  he 
claimed,  lay  the  difference  between  the  critical  philos- 
ophy and  traditional  dogmatism,  as  also  between  it 
and  the  position  of  Schelling,  who  claimed  to  have 
through  intellectual  intuition  an  immediate  knowledge 
of  the  absolute  as  it  is  in  itself. 

To  the  quotation  from  Fries  may  be  added  the  fol- 
lowing passages  from  DeWette's  Vorlesungen  iiber 
die  Religion,  published  in  1827:  "It  is  the  greatest 
discovery  of  modern  philosophy  that  the  highest  truths 
cannot  be  proved  but  only  believed,  and  that  all  wis- 
dom springs  from  fundamental  principles  which  are 
assumed  outright.'*  ^  "The  ideas  of  eternity,  and  im- 
mortality, of  the  Deity,  of  a  holy  world  order,  and 
the  complete  victory  of  the  good,  we  grasp  immedi- 
ately in  feeling,  and  only  afterward  clarify  them  by 
our  understanding."  ^  "When  we  speak  of  the  feeling 
in  which  the  source  of  religion  lies,  we  understand  by 
it  not  something  physical,  but  a  spiritual  faculty  which 

'P.  44. 

'Ibid.,  p.  102. 


124         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

is  practically  the  same  for  our  inner  life  as  the  sense 
of  touch  is  for  our  external  knowledge.  This  sense 
gives  us  immediate  but  dark  impressions  of  natural 
objects  which  need  to  be  cleared  up  by  the  sense  of 
sight.  Only  when  we  look  at  it,  have  we  a  clear  per- 
ception of  the  tree  we  have  touched.  Feeling  tells  us 
that  the  tree  is  there,  that  its  trunk  is  rough  or  smooth, 
large  or  small,  but  it  gives  us  no  clear  picture  of  all 
its  parts  such  as  we  get  from  the  sense  of  sight.  Sim- 
ilarly the  inner,  spiritual  feeling  gives  us  immediate 
and  certain  but  vague  knowledge.  As  the  outer  sense 
of  feeling  is  related  to  the  eye,  so  the  inner  to  the  un- 
derstanding." ^ 

A  position  identical  with  Jacobi's  was  represented  in 
England  by  his  younger  contemporary  Coleridge.  His 
familiar  distinction  between  the  reason  and  the  under- 
standing, at  times  modeled  upon  Kant's  notion  of  the 
practical  reason,  was  at  other  times  exactly  that  of  Ja- 
cobi  between  the  "Vernunft"  and  the  "Verstand."  "It 
has  been  made  evident,"  he  says,  "(i)  that  there  is  an 
intuition  or  mmediate  beholding,  accompanied  by  a 
conviction  of  the  necessity  and  universality  of  the  truth 
so  beholden,  not  derived  from  the  senses,  which  intui- 
tion, when  it  is  construed  by  pure  sense,  gives  birth  to 
the  science  of  mathematics,  and,  when  applied  to  ob- 
jects supersensuous  or  spiritual,  is  the  organ  of  theol- 
ogy and  philosophy;  and  (2)  that  there  is  likewise  a 
reflective  and  discursive  faculty,  or  mediate  appre- 
hension which,  taken  by  itself  and  uninfluenced  by 
the  former,  depends  on  the  senses  for  the  materials 
Mbid.,  p.  70  flf. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  I25 

on  which  it  is  exercised,  and  is  contained  within  the 
sphere  of  the  senses."  ^  "Understanding  is  the  fac- 
ulty of  reflection.  Reason  of  contemplation.  Rea- 
son, indeed,  is  much  nearer  to  sense  than  to  under- 
standing: for  reason  (says  our  great  Hooker)  is  a 
direct  aspect  of  truth,  an  inward  beholding,  having  a 
similar  relation  to  the  intelligible  or  spiritual,  as  sense 
has  to  the  material  or  phenomenal."  ^ 

Though  Coleridge  does  not  refer  to  Jacobi  in  con- 
nection with  his  distinction  between  the  reason  and 
the  understanding,  it  is  clear  from  these  passages  that 
it  is  identical  with  the  German  philosopher's.  The 
reason,  as  he  defines  it,  is  a  faculty  of  direct  vision 
by  which  we  immediately  apprehend  spiritual  reali- 
ties ;  in  other  words  it  is  what  Jacobi  called  sometimes 
"Glaube"  and  sometimes  "Vernunft."  ^ 

The  same  distinction  was  made  much  of  also  by 
the  New  England  transcendentalists.  Emerson  was 
but  expressing  a  common  opinion  w^hen  he  uttered  the 
famiHar  words :  "There  is  no  doctrine  of  the  Reason 
which  will  bear  to  be  taught  by  the  Understanding."  * 

^  Aids  to  Reflection,  Shedd's  edition  of  Coleridge's  Works, 
(1854),  Vol.  I,  p.  252  ff. 

'Ibid.,  p.  246. 

'  Coleridge  at  times,  particularly  under  the  influence  of  roman- 
ticism, interpreted  reason  in  a  larger  sense,  as  including  the 
whole  intellectual  and  spiritual  nature  of  man,  and  again  he  in- 
terpreted it  as  universal  divine  reason  in  which  the  individual 
participates  (see,  for  instance,  The  Statesman's  Manual,  appen- 
dix B).  But  this  in  no  way  affects  the  significance  of  the  par- 
ticular contrast  which,  in  agreement  with  Jacobi,  he  commonly 
drew  between  the  reason  and  the  understanding. 

*  Harvard  Divinity  School  Address  (1838). 


126         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

The  position,  that  man  possesses  a  higher  faculty 
of  vision,  whatever  it  may  be  called,  by  which  he  im- 
mediately perceives  God  and  spiritual  realities,  has 
been  very  common  during  the  last  century  in  England, 
as  in  other  countries.^  A  few  illustrations  must  suf- 
fice. The  famous  Cambridge  theologian,  Julius  Hare, 
in  his  Victory  of  Faith,  published  in  1829,  refers  to 
"the  faculty  in  man  through  which  the  spiritual  world 
exercises  its  sway  over  him'*;  ^  and  says  of  faith:  "In 
all  the  works  of  the  creation,  in  the  whole  order  and 
course  of  the  world,  it  sees  and  feels  and  acknowl- 
edges the  invisible  things  of  God,  even  His  eternal 
power  and  Godhead."  ^  And  again,  "Our  reason,  when 
rightly  employed,  may  discern  many  speculative 
truths.  Until  they  are  substantiated,  however,  and 
vivified  by  Faith,  they  exercise  no  practical  influence 
on  our  lives.  It  is  not  written,  that  we  stand  by  Rea- 
son, but  that  we  stand  by  Faith.  It  is  not  written, 
that  the  just  live  by  Reason,  but  that  the  just  live  by 
Faith.  By  Reason  no  man  ever  lived,  no  man  ever 
stood.  For  we  cannot  stand  upon  ourselves.  We 
cannot  breathe  in  a  vacuum.  We  must  have  some- 
thing to  stand  on,  something  to  breathe;  and  this  we 
receive  from  Faith."  * 

Francis  W.  Newman,  brother  of  the  better  known 
Cardinal,  but,  unlike  him,  a  radical  in  his  religious 

*  For  examples  see  Caldecott's  Philosophy  of  Religion  in  Eng^ 
land  and  America;  Chapter  X:    Intuitivism  or  Mysticism. 
•Third  edition  (1874),  p.  71. 
■Ibid.,  p.  loi. 
*Ibid.,  p.  144. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  12/ 

thinking,  called  the  soul  *'the  organ  of  specific  infor- 
mation to  us  respecting  things  spiritual."  ^  And 
James  Martineau  declared  that  "in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  human  soul  there  is  provision  for  an  im- 
mediate apprehension  of  God."  ^ 

Still  more  recently  Bishop  Westcott,  in  striking 
agreement  with  Jacobi,  says:  '^Questioning,  then, 
my  own  experience,  and  interpreting,  so  far  as  I  am 
able,  the  life  of  others,  as  it  falls  under  my  observa- 
tion, I  hold  that  the  assumption  which  I  have  made, 
that  as  men  we  necessarily  recognize  these  three  exis- 
tences, self,  the  world,  and  God,  is  fully  justified. 
The  conviction  rests  ultimately  on  my  personal  con- 
sciousness; but,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  my  fellow-men 
act  under  the  influence  of  the  ideas  which  I  distin- 
guish by  these  names.  ...  I  am  conscious  of  *self.' 
I  feel — I  know,  that  is,  immediately  with  the  most 
certain  assurance  which  I  can  realize — that  I  am 
something  more  than  a  collection  of  present  sensa- 
tions or  thoughts.  ...  I  am  conscious  also  of  *the 
world.'  I  feel,  that  is,  that  there  is  outside  me  some- 
thing finite,  by  which  I  am  affected  in  various  ways. 
...  I  am  conscious  in  the  third  place  of  God."  ^ 
"The  proof  of  Revelation  is  then  primarily  personal. 
It  springs  from  a  realized  fellowship  with  the  unseen 
which  we  are  enabled  to  gain.  The  two  complemen- 
tary statements,  credo  ut  intelligam  (fides  praecedit 
^ntellectum)  and  intelligo  ut  credam,  are  both  true  at 

^The  Soul  (1849),  p.  3. 

^The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  (1890),  p.  651. 

'The  Gospel  of  Life  (1892),  p.  4  ff. 


128         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

different  points  in  the  divine  life.  The  one  applies  to 
the  groundwork;  the  other  to  the  superstructure;  the 
one  describes  the  apprehension  of  the  fundamental 
facts;  the  other  describes  the  expression  of  doctrines. 
Faith  obtains  the  new  data  for  reasoning,  but  when 
the  data  are  firmly  held,  then  the  old  methods  become 
applicable.  Historical  facts  convey  new  lessons  when 
regarded  in  the  light  of  the  revealed  relation  of  God 
to  the  world;  and,  within  certain  limits,  we  can  ex- 
press conclusions  in  human  language  which  present 
the  truth  adequately  for  us.  The  data  do  not  modify 
these  methods,  but  increase  the  materials  to  which 
they  are  applicable."  ^ 

Meanwhile  faith  was  undergoing  rehabilitation 
along  another  line  opened  by  Kant.^  As  already  said, 
the  critical  philosophy  meant  the  denial  of  the  possi- 
bility of  demonstrating  the  existence  of  God,  or  of 
any  transcendent  realities.  We  can  know  only  phe- 
nomena; all  else  is  hidden  from  us.  We  have  seen 
how  Jacobi  rescued  himself  from  this  scepticism  by 
means  of  the  philosophy  of  feeling.  Our  understand- 
ings* are  incapable  of  reaching  reality,  but  we  have  a 
higher  faculty  by  which  we  may  apprehend  it  directly. 

To  Kant  this  assumption  seemed  the  height  of  un- 
reason. And  yet  he,  too,  was  unwilling  to  rest  in 
complete  scepticism;  he,  too,  felt  the  reality  of  tran- 

^Ibid.,  p.  83. 

'  In  this  and  in  some  other  parts  of  the  book  I  have  made  free 
use  of  portions  of  my  articles  on  Modern  Ideas  of  God  ("Har- 
vard Theological  Review"  for  January,  1908)  and  The  Pragma- 
tism of  Kant  ("Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific 
Methods"  for  April  14,  1910). 


THE    REHABILITATION   OF   FAITH  129 

scendent  values,  and  was  driven  to  vindicate  a  place 
for  them  in  human  belief.  In  his  Grundlegiing  zur 
Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  published  in  1785,  and  in  his 
Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft,  published  in  1788, 
he  set  forth  the  principle  of  the  categorical  impera- 
tive, and  deduced  from  it  the  postulates  of  freedom, 
immortality,  and  God.  The  categorical  imperative 
means:  Do  your  duty,  because  it  is  your  duty,  and 
not  from  any  other  motive  whatsoever.  But  this  in- 
volves freedom.  "A  man  judges  that  he  can  do  a 
thing,"  Kant  says,  ^'because  he  is  conscious  that  he 
ought  to  do  it,  and  so  recognizes  in  himself  freedom 
which  would  have  remained  undiscovered  by  him,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  moral  law."  ^ 

The  consciousness,  I  ought,  and  the  resultant  con- 
viction, I  can,  involve  autonomy,  or  freedom,  and  so 
superiority  to  the  phenomenal  world  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect. If  the  will  were  bound  by  extraneous  motives 
it  would  not  be  free,  but  would  be  under  the  bond  of 
necessity  and  only  a  link  in  the  endless  chain  of  causa- 
tion. But  to  act  solely  in  response  to  the  sense  of 
ought,  to  set  aside  all  other  considerations  and  obey 
the  categorical  imperative  of  duty,  is  to  give  a  law  to 
oneself,  is  to  be  autonomous  and  hence  free.  "I  de- 
clare that  every  being  which  cannot  act  otherwise 
than  under  the  idea  of  freedom  is  on  that  account, 
viewed  practically,  actually  free;  that  is,  all  the  laws 
which  are  inseparably  bound  up  with  freedom  are  ap- 
plicable to  it  just  as  much  as  if  theoretical  philosophy 

*  Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft;  S'dmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  II, 
p.  39. 


130         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIC^US   IDEAS 

had  declared  it  free.  Now  I  assert  that  we  must 
necessarily  ascribe  to  every  rational  being  that  has  a 
will  the  idea  of  freedom  under  which  alone  it  acts. 
For  in  such  a  being  we  assume  a  reason  which  is 
practical,  that  is,  has  causality  in  reference  to  its  ob- 
jects. .  .  .  The  reason  must  look  upon  itself  as  the 
author  of  its  own  principles,  independent  of  foreign 
influences;  and  consequently,  as  practical  reason,  or 
as  the  will  of  a  rational  being,  must  look  upon  itself 
as  free,  that  is,  the  will  of  a  being  can  be  its  own  will 
only  under  the  idea  of  freedom;  and  hence  freedom 
must,  from  the  practical  point  of  view,  be  ascribed  to 
all  rational  beings."  ^  And  again,  *'Thus  categorical 
imperatives  are  possible  because  the  idea  of  freedom 
makes  me  a  member  of  a  rational  world.  If  I  were 
that  alone,  all  my  actions  would  always  be  in  accord 
with  the  autonomy  of  my  will.  But  since  I  am  at  the 
same  time  also  a  member  of  the  sensible  world,  I  rec- 
ognize that  they  ought  to  be  in  accord  therewith."  ^ 
This  gives  our  categorical  imperative,  our  sense  of 
ought.  Thus  Kant  arrives  at  freedom  as  a  necessary 
postulate  of  moral  activity. 

In  a  similar  way  he  reaches  also  the  postulates  of 
immortality  and  God.  We  see  inevitably  by  the  law 
of  our  practical  reason  that  virtue  should  lead  to  hap- 
piness. The  combination  of  virtue  and  happiness  we 
recognize  as  the  highest  good  by  the  very  necessity 
of  our  moral  nature  or  by  the  law  of  our  practical 

^Grundlegung  sur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten;  ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p. 
76  ff. 
'Ibid.,  p.  83. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF   FAITH  I3I 

reason.  But  this  recognition  of  the  highest  good  as 
the  combination  of  virtue  and  happiness  leads  to  im- 
mortaHty,  for  only  through  an  endless  progression 
can  virtue  reach  perfect  realization,  and  so  the  first 
and  necessary  element  in  the  highest  good  be  real- 
ized. "The  accomplishment  of  the  highest  good  in 
the  world  is  the  necessary  object  of  a  will  determined 
by  the  moral  law.  In  this,  however,  the  complete  con- 
formity of  the  disposition  to  the  moral  law  is  the 
supreme  condition  of  the  highest  good.  It  must  con- 
sequently be  possible  as  truly  as  its  object  is,  for  it  is 
included  in  the  same  command  to  promote  the  latter. 
But  the  complete  conformity  of  the  will  to  the  moral 
law  is  holiness,  a  perfection  of  which  no  rational  be- 
ing in  the  sensible  world  is  capable  at  any  moment  of 
its  existence.  But,  since  it  is  nevertheless  demanded 
as  practically  indispensable,  it  can  be  reached  only  in 
an  endless  progress  toward  perfect  conformity.  And 
it  is  therefore  necessary,  according  to  the  principles 
of  the  pure  practical  reason,  to  assume  such  a  practi- 
cal progress  as  the  real  object  of  our  will.  This  end- 
less progress,  however,  is  possible  only  on  the  as- 
sumption of  the  endless  existence  and  the  personality 
of  the  same  rational  being,  which  is  called  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul."  ^ 

Similarly  the  conception  of  the  highest  good  leads 
us  to  postulate  God,  for  only  a  supreme  moral  being 
can  make  virtue  lead  to  happiness,  that  is,  only  such 
a  being  can  supply  the  second  element  of  the  highest 
good.    "Happiness  is  the  condition  of  a  rational  being 

^Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft,  p.  156. 


132        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

in  the  world  when  everything  throughout  his  life  goes 
in  accordance  with  his  wish  and  will.  It  therefore  de- 
pends upon  the  harmony  of  nature  with  his  whole 
purpose  and  likewise  with  the  essential  motive  which 
controls  his  will.  But  the  moral  law,  as  a  law  of 
freedom,  issues  its  commands  by  means  of  motives 
which  must  be  entirely  independent  of  nature  and  of 
its  harmony  with  our  desires.  A  rational  being, 
active  in  the  world,  is  not,  however,  at  the  same  time 
the  cause  of  the  world  and  of  nature.  Consequently, 
in  the  moral  law  there  is  not  the  least  ground  for  a 
necessary  connection  between  virtue  and  the  corre- 
sponding happiness  of  a  being  who  is  a  part  of  the 
world  and  therefore  dependent  upon  it.  .  .  .  Never- 
theless, in  the  practical  problem  of  the  pure  reason, 
that  is,  in  the  required  labor  for  the  highest  good, 
such  a  connection  is  postulated  as  necessary :  it  is  our 
duty  to  seek  to  promote  the  highest  good  which  must 
therefore  be  possible.  Hence  the  existence  of  a  cause 
of  all  nature,  different  from  itself,  must  be  postulated 
which  contains  the  ground  of  this  connection;  that  is, 
of  the  exact  correspondence  of  happiness  and  vir- 
tue." 1 

Thus  to  postulate  God  and  immortality  is  not  a 
duty — no  man  is  under  obligation  to  assume  the  ex- 
istence of  anything — but  it  is  a  need.  We  are  driven 
to  it  by  the  demands  of  our  practical  reason.  Our 
duty  is  only  to  labor  for  the  realization  of  the  highest 
good;  our  need  is  to  postulate  immortality  and  God 
that  the  highest  good  may  be  realized.  This  highest 
*Ibid.,  p.  159. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF   FAITH  1 33 

good,  which  is  the  supreme  end  of  creation,  and 
which  Kant  calls  the  Kingdom  of  God,  is  not  happi- 
ness, but  virtue  with  the  happiness  corresponding 
thereto. 

The  significance  of  Kant's  position  did  not  lie  in 
the  particular  interpretation  he  gave  of  the  highest 
good  or  in  the  particular  way  in  which  he  deduced 
his  postulates  of  God  and  immortality.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  few  have  found  either  the  one  or  the  other 
satisfactory.  It  lay,  rather,  in  his  general  method  of 
postulating  spiritual  realities  on  the  basis  of  the  needs 
of  our  moral  nature,  instead  of  proving  them  by  theo- 
retical reason  or  discovering  them  by  the  eye  of  faith. 
In  such  postulation  we  are  active,  not  merely  passive. 
We  exercise  our  wills.  The  needs  of  our  moral  na- 
ture demand  certain  faiths,  and  we  create  them  for 
ourselves  instead  of  waiting  for  them  to  be  given  us. 
In  his  Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft  Kant  says, 
"Granted  that  the  pure  moral  law  absolutely  binds 
everyone,  not  as  a  prudential  rule,  but  as  a  command, 
then  the  right-minded  man  may  well  say :  I  will  that 
there  be  a  God;  that  my  existence  in  this  world  be 
also  an  existence  outside  the  chain  of  nature  in  a  pure 
world  of  the  understanding ;  finally  that  my  existence 
be  endless.  I  insist  on  this,  and  will  not  permit  this 
belief  to  be  taken  from  me."  ^  If  one  should  say 
there  is  no  evidence  for  the  existence  of  God,  no  proof 
of  divine  purpose  in  the  world,  we  might  reply  in  the 
spirit  of  Kant:  We  will  put  purpose  there;  we  will 
give  the  world  meaning  which  we  cannot  discover  in 

Mbid.,  p.  182. 


134         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

it.  This  is  to  be  religious.  Faith  in  God  is  an  heroic 
deed,  not  simply  passive  acquiescence.  We  make  a 
moral  purpose  supreme,  and  we  read  it  into  the  uni- 
verse, and  thus  find  God  for  ourselves.  Religion  is 
a  creative  act  of  the  moral  will,  as  knowledge,  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  is  a  creative  act  of  the  understanding. 
Only  as  we  stamp  purpose  on  the  world  and  give  it 
ethical  meaning,  or,  in  other  words,  only  as  we  believe 
in  a  God  of  moral  purpose,  can  we  live  our  highest 
lives  and  be  true  to  ourselves.  This  is  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  Kant's  religious  philosophy. 

Kant's  disciple,  Fichte,  while  criticizing  the  eudae- 
monism  of  his  conception  of  God  and  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  yet  followed  a  similar  method  of  postulation. 
We  need  God,  not  in  order  to  guarantee  the  ultimate 
union  of  virtue  and  happiness,  as  Kant  had  thought, 
but  in  order  to  guarantee  the  victory  of  virtue.  In 
agreement  with  Kant,  Fichte  shows  that  we  cannot 
argue  from  the  world  to  a  rational  creator,  or  to  a 
world-ruler,  but  can  reach  God  only  through  our 
moral  nature.  I  find  myself  free  from  the  control  of 
the  world  of  sense  and  raised  above  it.  As  a  free  be- 
ing I  possess  a  purpose  to  which  I  give  myself.  I 
cannot  doubt  my  freedom  and  I  cannot  doubt  my  pur- 
pose without  denying  myself. 

The  conviction  that  I  am  free  and  am  called  to 
accomplish  a  purpose  is  faith,  and  hence  the  element 
of  moral  certainty  is  faith.  To  set  myself  an  object  is 
the  same  as  to  set  it  before  me  as  actually  accomplished 
in  some  future  time.  If  I  will  not  deny  myself,  I 
must  assume  the  possibility  of  its  accomplishment.    If 


THE    REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  I35 

I  ought  I  can.  The  ought  is  given  immediately  and 
necessarily  involves  the  can.  This  is  a  categorical  im- 
perative, and  is  based  on  nothing  else.  The  world, 
including  my  existence  and  that  of  others,  is  the  com- 
mon theater  of  morality.  It  constitutes  a  scene  for 
the  exercise  of  freedom,  but  itself  has  not  the  slight- 
est influence  on  freedom.  The  free  moral  will  is 
above  all  nature.  "That  the  rational  object  shall  be 
realized,''  Fichte  says,  "can  be  brought  about  only 
through  the  activity  of  a  free  being.  But  it  will 
surely  be  realized  in  accordance  with  a  higher  law. 
Right  doing  is  possible,  and  every  circumstance  con- 
tributes to  it  through  that  higher  law."  ^  "This  is 
the  true  faith ;  this  moral  order  is  the  divine  which  we 
assume.  It  is  built  through  right  doing.  This  is  the 
only  possible  confession  of  faith,  joyfully  and  with- 
out restraint  to  do  what  each  one  ought  to  do  without 
doubting  and  troubling  oneself  about  the  conse- 
quences. In  this  way  this  divine  becomes  living  and 
actual  to  us."  2 

There  is  an  interesting  recent  reproduction  of 
Fichte's  position  in  Rauwenhoff's  Religionsphiloso- 
phie,  published  in  1894.  Religion  is  faith  in  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe.  The  man  who  follows 
the  dictates  of  his  moral  ideals  will  find  himself  and 
the  universe  at  one.  This  or  a  similar  form  of  ethi- 
cal theism,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  very  common  to-day, 

^  Ueber  den  Grund  unseres  Glaubens  an  eine  gottUche  Welt- 
regierung;  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  Vol.  V,  p.  184. 
'  Ibid,  p.  185. 


136        THE   RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

even  where  its  connection  with  Kant  and  Fichte  is 
not  recognized.  ^ 

There  are,  of  course,  two  diverse  ways  of  reaching 
faith  in  a  moral  order  of  the  universe.  We  may  dis- 
cover in  our  own  experience,  or  through  the  study  of 
history  and  the  Hves  of  other  men,  that  there  is  such 
a  moral  order,  that  the  world  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
moral  God;  or,  we  may  postulate  God  in  spite  of 
observation  and  experience,  or  independently  of  them. 
Our  moral  living,  we  may  say,  demands  such  faith, 
and  we  will  believe  whatever  the  verdict  of  sense  may 
be.  But  this  very  method  of  postulation  involves  the 
belief  that  the  venture  will  be  justified  in  experience; 
that  what  we  have  accepted  on  trust  in  order  to  be 
true  to  our  own  highest  self  will  be  vindicated  in  days 
to  come;  so  that  postulation  will  be  followed  by  veri- 
fication, the  true  pragmatic  method. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  a  few  words  about  cur- 
rent pragmatism,  which  owes  so  much  to  the  writings 
of  William  James  and  in  which  the  method  of  pos- 
tulation that  took  its  rise  with  Kant  finds  its  most 
striking  and  consistent  contemporary  expression. 
According  to  the  pragmatist,  if  he  be  a  theist,  God  is 
a  postulate,  or  an  assumption,  based  wholly  on  practi- 
cal grounds.  We  do  not  discover  him  in  the  universe, 
or  deduce  him  from  the  universe ;  we  do  not  find  him 
in  our  own  experience,  or  argue  back  to  him  from  our 
possession  of  a  moral  nature,  moral  standards  and 
ideals;  we  cannot  demonstrate  his  existence,  or  come 

*  Cf .     Caldecott's    Philosophy    of   Religion    in    England    and 
America,  p.  72  flf. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  1 37 

into  conscious  touch  with  him;  but  our  spiritual  or 
moral  needs  demand  a  God,  and  we  assume  that  God 
is,  and  live  our  lives  accordingly.  If  the  assumption 
works,  if  our  faith  vindicates  itself  in  experience,  we 
have  the  strongest  kind  of  proof,  the  only  possible 
proof  of  God. 

Faith  in  God,  therefore,  according  to  the  prag- 
matist,  is  always  a  venture.  We  may  not  discover 
meaning  in  the  world  as  we  gaze  upon  it,  or  as  its 
manifold  life  unrolls  itself  before  our  eyes.  It  rnay 
seem  only  a  complex  of  blind  and  conflicting  forces. 
Everything  looks  like  the  mere  play  of  chance.  Con- 
clusive evidence  that  the  race  is  growing  better,  or 
that  there  is  a  moral  order  of  the  universe,  is  difficult 
to  find.  But  we  resolve  that  the  world  shall  have 
meaning  for  us,  that  it  shall  be  a  moral  world  in 
which  our  moral  purposes  shall  be  accomplished  and 
our  moral  ideals  realized,  and  we  live  our  Hves  under 
the  compulsion  of  this  resolve.  This  is  to  have  faith 
in  God,  and  the  only  kind  of  faith  that  is  real,  accord- 
ing to  the  pragmatist;  not  the  faith  of  passive  acquies- 
cence or  consent,  but  the  creative  faith  of  active  pur- 
pose and  effort. 

The  world  is  plastic  in  our  hands.  It  is  not  offered 
to  us  ready  made  and  complete  with  the  moral  values 
all  there  and  the  spiritual  purposes  already  realized. 
It  is  given  us  to  make  of  it  what  we  will.  We  may 
find  God  in  it,  if  we  live  by  the  postulate  that  He  is 
there,  or  we  may  never  discover  Him  if  we  stand  off 
and  wait  for  him  to  reveal  himself.  The  religious 
man,  according  to  the  pragmatist,  is  he  who  make? 


138        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  postulate,  who  dares  to  venture  faith  in  God  and 
to  live  his  life  thereby.  And  he  has  proved  his  faith 
who  finds  it  livable,  who  finds  his  moral  purposes  real- 
izable and  his  reading  of  the  world  in  moral  terms 
justified.  But  the  venture  cannot  wait  upon  the 
proof;  we  must  believe  ere  we  can  know  that  our  be- 
lief will  vindicate  itself  as  sound. 

The  genuine  pragmatist  holds  his  faiths  modestly. 
He  recognizes  that  truth  is  at  best  only  relative,  not 
absolute,  for  experience  is  finite  and  always  growing. 
He  knows  that  a  test  which  shall  be  certainly  valid 
for  all  men  and  for  all  time  is  not  to  be  had,  and 
hence  he  looks  with  charity  on  those  who  do  not  share 
his  faith.  But  his  breadth  of  tolerance  is  not  indif- 
ference. Believing  that  the  good  ought  to  be,  he  de- 
termines that  it  shall  be,  and  his  life  to  make  it  real 
is  the  measure  of  his  faith.  Faith  in  God  is  ho  easy 
and  indolent  and  comfortable  thing,  costing  nothing 
and  demanding  scarcely  more,  but  a  hard  and  heroic 
deed,  to  be  won  only  by  God-like  living  and  striving. 

Congenial  to  many  a  modern  man  is  the  reality  of 
the  faith  thus  gained  and  tested.  Fruit  of  human 
need  as  it  is,  it  matches  the  need  from  which  it 
springs,  and  it  appeals  not  to  tradition,  or  authority, 
or  foreign  testimony,  but  to  the  experience  of  each 
man  whose  it  is.  It  makes  no  extravagant  and  un- 
verifiable  claims.  It  utters  no  dogmas.  It  embodies 
itself  in  no  creeds  for  the  acceptance  of  others.  To 
him  who  has  it,  it  is  all-sufficient  and  satisfying,  and 
asks  no  proof  from  without.  It  demands  only  that 
as  it  was  won,  in  the  same  way  it  shall  be  kept,  by 


THE   REHABILITATION   OF   FAITH  1 39 

living  a  life  which  fulfills  God's  good  purposes,  and 
so  makes  him  sure. 

The  question  inevitably  forces  itself  upon  us,  how 
does  pragmatism  attain  to  objective  reality  in  the  the- 
istic  sphere  ?  The  answer  is :  Just  as  in  any  other 
sphere,  by  postulation  and  by  testing  the  postulate  in 
experience.  We  assume  the  real  existence  of  the 
other  men  whom  we  see  day  by  day,  and  the  assump- 
tion works.  If  we  assume  the  existence  of  our  dream 
men,  the  assumption  does  not  work,  and  we  discover 
that  they  are  not  real.  We  cannot  see  God ;  it  is  not 
a  God  we  can  look  upon  that  our  ethical  needs  require 
us  to  postulate;  and  we  should  not  expect  to  test  his 
reality,  either  now  or  in  another  world,  by  the  organs 
of  sight.  But,  if  now  and  in  all  the  ages  to  come  our 
postulate  of  God  vindicates  itself  in  our  experience 
and  in  the  experience  of  those  of  our  fellows  who  also 
believe  in  him — if  it  vindicates  itself,  that  is,  in  our 
common  social  experience — there  can  be  no  completer 
proof  that  God  is. 

An  interesting  combination  of  what  may  be  called 
the  pragmatic  method — though  he  did  not  call  it  so — 
and  the  historical,  is  found  in  the  theism  of  the  most 
influential  theologian  of  the  late  nineteenth  century, 
the  German  Albrecht  Ritschl.  We  belong,  so  Ritschl 
says,  to  two  worlds,  the  world  of  things  and  the  world 
of  ideals.  Faith  in  God  is  due  to  our  need  of  win- 
ning the  victory  for  our  ideals,  of  asserting  ourselves 
as  free  spiritual  beings,  superior  to  the  world  of  sense, 
for  Ritschl  was  very  fond  of  insisting  that  man 
is  worth  more  than  the  whole  world.    We  cannot  thus 


140        THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

assert  ourselves,  except  by  faith  in  a  realm  of  spir- 
itual values  to  which  we  belong,  and  in  which  we  live. 
"In  all  religion,"  Ritschl  says,  "the  effort  is  made, 
with  the  help  of  the  exalted  spiritual  power  which 
man  worships,  to  overcome  the  contradiction  in 
which  he  finds  himself  as  a  part  of  the  world  of  na- 
ture, and  as  a  spiritual  personality  which  claims  to 
rule  nature.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  man  is  a  part  of 
nature,  helpless  over  against  it,  dependent  upon  and 
limited  by  external  things.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
spirit,  he  feels  himself  driven  to  assert  his  independ- 
ence over  against  such  things.  In  this  situation  re- 
ligion arises  as  the  belief  in  exalted  spiritual  powers, 
through  whose  help  the  power  which  resides  in  the 
man  himself  is  in  some  way  supplemented,  or  raised 
to  a  complete  whole  of  its  kind,  sufficient  to  with- 
stand the  pressure  of  the  natural  world."  ^ 

And  again :  "Man  is  a  part  of  the  world,  and  that 
not  merely  as  a  physical  being  conditioned  by  it,  but 
also  as  an  individual  spirit.  Nevertheless,  as  spirit,  he 
distinguishes  himself  from  the  world,  wins  by  means 
of  the  idea  of  God  the  conception  of  his  own  value 
over  against  the  world,  and  in  the  Christian  religion 
raises  himself  to  the  conviction  that  the  worth  of  his 
spiritual  personality  surpasses  that  of  the  whole  realm 
of  nature."  ^ 

Thus  Ritschl  started  with  the  method  of  postula- 
tion.    God  to  him,  as  to  Fichte,  was  made  necessary 

*  Christliche  Lehre  von  der  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung, 
third  edition,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  189  ff. 
'Ibid.,  p.  585. 


THE    REHABILITATION   OF   FAITH  I4I 

by  our  character  as  free  moral  beings,  in  order  to 
guarantee  the  victory  of  the  ideal  for  which  we  live. 
But  he  went  beyond  Fichte  in  finding  historical  veri- 
fication for  his  faith  in  the  figure  of  Jesus  Christ. 
In  him,  according  to  Ritschl,  we  see  a  man  who  ac- 
tually won  the  victory  over  the  world  which  we  are 
striving  after,  by  faith  in  a  God  whom  he  called  his 
Father  and  by  devotion  to  that  Father's  will.  The 
victory  won  by  such  faith  and  devotion — a  victory 
which  we,  too,  may  win — is  the  strongest  possible 
guarantee  of  the  existence  of  the  divine  purpose  which 
we  make  our  own  when  we  thus  live.  That  purpose 
is  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth ; 
not  a  combination  of  virtue  and  happiness  lying  be- 
yond our  temporal  existence,  but  the  reign  of  right- 
eousness and  goodness  in  this  world  of  ours.  For 
the  promotion  of  this  it  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to 
labor.  We  win  the  completest  victory  over  the  world, 
not  by  asserting  ourselves  against  it,  but  by  promot- 
ing the  Kingdom  of  God  within  it;  we  conquer  the 
world  by  serving  it.  This  was  Ritschl' s  combination 
of  ethics  and  religion,  and  this,  he  claimed,  was  the 
message  of  Jesus  Christ. 

We  are  reminded  here  of  the  position  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  who  also  felt  the  influence  of  Kant  and 
Fichte,  and  represented,  though  independently,  a  ten- 
dency similar  to  Ritschl's.  "That  Jesus  is  the  Son  of 
a  Great  Personal  First  Cause,"  Arnold  says,  "is  itself 
unverifiable;  and  that  there  is  a  Great  Personal  First 
Cause  is  unverifiable,  too.  But  that  there  is  an  endur- 
ing power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteous- 


142         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ness  is  verifiable,  as  we  have  seen,  by  experience ;  and 
that  Jesus  is  the  offspring  of  this  power  is  verifiable 
from  experience  also.  For  God  is  the  author  of  right- 
eousness; now,  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  because  he 
gives  the  method  and  secret  by  which  alone  is  right- 
eousness possible.  And  that  he  does  give  this,  we  can 
verify,  again,  from  experience.  It  is  so !  try,  and  you 
will  find  it  to  be  so !  .  .  .  And,  therefore,  as  we  found 
we  could  say  to  the  masses :  ^Attempt  to  do  without 
Israel's  God  that  makes  for  righteousness,  and  you 
will  find  out  your  mistake!'  so  we  find  we  can  now 
proceed  farther,  and  say:  *  Attempt  to  reach  right- 
eousness by  any  way  except  that  of  Jesus,  and  you 
will  find  out  your  mistake !'  "  ^ 

The  great  significance  of  this  whole  line  of  theism 
is  that  God  is  found  in  the  realm  of  values ;  that  he  is 
interpreted  primarily  as  moral  purpose  and  influence 
rather  than  as  substance;  and  also  that  he  is  reached 
neither  by  theoretical  demonstration  nor  by  mystical 
vision,  but  by  the  exercise  of  the  moral  will. 

The  rehabilitation  of  faith,  which  has  been 
illustrated  in  this  chapter,  is  of  immense  importance 
and  marks  a  new  era  in  religious  thought.  Particu- 
larly is  this  true  of  the  line  of  treatment  initiated  by 
Kant.  In  general  the  abandonment,  both  by  Jacobi 
and  Kant,  of  the  attempt  to  find  theoretical  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  God  and  spiritual  realities,  and  the 
substitution  of  another  method  of  approach,  was 
epoch-making  in  its  effects.  Jacobi,  however,  and 
those  who  followed  him  only  returned  to  an  old  and 

'^Literature  and  Dogma,  Chapter  X. 


THE   REHABILITATION    OF    FAITH  1 43 

common  position  in  making  faith  a  faculty  of  direct 
perception  and  resorting  to  it  in  the  face  of  the  fail- 
ure of  the  understanding  to  rise  above  the  world  of 
sense.  But  Kant's  attitude  and  the  pragmatic  ten- 
dency which  took  its  rise  with  him  were  new.  The 
position  has  been  approached  now  and  then — Christ's 
words,  "If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine,"  are  often  quoted  as  an  example  of  it — 
but  it  has  never  been  clearly  set  out  until  modern 
times.  In  it,  without  question,  an  increasing  number 
are  finding  satisfaction.  It  has  been  promoted  by  the 
modern  development  of  psychology,  which  has  con- 
tributed to  the  rapid  growth  of  voluntarism.  In  gen- 
eral the  whole  tendency  means  the  breaking  of  the 
bonds  of  intellectualism,  or,  in  other  words,  the  rec- 
ognition that  the  intellect  is  not  the  only  road  to  truth, 
a  fact  of  the  very  greatest  significance.  The  recogni- 
tion of  this  marks  perhaps  the  profoundest  difference 
between  our  own  age  and  the  eighteenth  and  earlier 
centuries.  Whether  in  dogmatism  or  in  rational- 
ism, the  intellect  was  formerly  in  full  control  in 
philosophy.  Kant's  greatest  significance  lay  in  his 
break  with  this  age-long  prejudice,  and  his  recogni- 
tion of  the  equal  rights  of  the  emotional  and  volun- 
tary side  of  man's  nature.  This  meant  the  coming 
of  a  new  age,  both  in  philosophy  and  in  theology.  It 
was  held  back  for  a  long  time  by  the  intellectualism 
of  Hegel,  but  since  the  influence  of  the  latter  has 
waned,  it  has  begun  to  come  into  its  own. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AGNOSTICISM 

Nothing  is  more  striking  in  the  attitude  of  think- 
ing men  to-day  than  their  agnosticism  touching  many 
matters  about  which  in  other  days  they  were  wont  to 
dogmatize  with  complete  assurance.  The  criticism 
of  Hume,  and  particularly  of  Kant,  served  to  reveal 
the  unsoundness  of  the  old  dogmatism,  negative  as 
well  as  positive.  The  supraphenomenal  or  noumenal 
world  is  quite  inaccessible  to  the  human  understand- 
ing. As  seen  in  the  chapter  on  the  critical  philosophy, 
this  principle  was  employed  by  Kant  to  show  the  fu- 
tility of  all  theoretical  proofs  of  the  divine  existence, 
but  he  used  it  also  to  show  with  equal  clearness,  that 
the  existence  of  God  could  not  be  disproved.  The 
same  line  of  reasoning  which  forces  the  former  con- 
clusion upon  us  compels  us,  according  to  Kant,  to 
recognize  the  latter  as  well.  "The  same  grounds  by 
which  the  incapacity  of  human  reason  to  assert  the 
existence  of  such  a  being  is  made  evident  necessarily 
suffice  to  prove  the  vanity  of  every  denial  of  it.  For 
whence  by  mere  theoretical  reason  shall  one  draw  the 
certainty  that  no  supreme  being  exists  as  the  basis  of 
everything  that  is  ?"  ^ 

^Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  p.  547. 

144 


AGNOSTICISM         •  I4S 

The  soundness  of  this  position  has  been  generally 
recognized  since  Kant's  day,  and  as  a  result  agnosti- 
cism has  widely  taken  the  place  of  atheism.  The 
growth  of  the  scientific  spirit  has  tended  in  the  same 
direction,  to  restrain  thinking  men  from  going  be- 
yond the  facts  and  asserting  what  cannot  be  proved, 
whether  it  be  by  way  of  negation  or  of  affirmation. 
Dogmatic  atheism  is  now  generally  recognized  to  be 
as  unscientific  as  dogmatic  theism.  Here  and  there 
is  to  be  found  dogmatism,  both  religious  and  anti-  I 
religious,  as  extreme  and  intolerant  as  ever,  but  it  is 
decidedly  exceptional  in  cultivated  circles,  and,  as  a 
rule,  educated  men  vie  with  one  another  in  the  mod- 
esty with  which  they  disclaim  the  right  to  make  any 
positive  assertions  touching  realities  lying  beyond  the 
realm  of  phenomena. 

The  intellectual  humility  which  finds  expression  in 
agnosticism  is  in  striking  contrast  with  eighteenth 
century  assurance  and  certitude.  Then  the  educated 
world  prided  itself  on  its  knowledge,  and  was  impa- 
tient and  even  contemptuous  of  all  so-called  myster- 
ies. The  title  of  John  Toland's  little  book — Chris- 
tianity not  Mysterious — which  appeared  in  1706,  is 
a  capital  illustration  of  the  spirit  of  his  age,  the  age 
of  an  imperious  and  self-confident  rationalism.  The 
conviction,  that  the  whole  realm  of  existence  could  be 
explored  and  all  secrets  laid  bare,  was  not  unnatural 
at  a  time  when  men  were  rapidly  emancipating  them- 
selves from  the  trammels  of  the  past,  and  were  mak- 
ing hitherto  undreamed  of  progress  in  the  study  of 
the  world  of  nature.     But  the  very  vastness  of  the 


146        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

new  knowledge,  with  the  ever-enlarging  and  limitless 
vistas  which  it  opened  in  all  directions,  served  to 
check  the  early  assurance,  and  contributed  to  the 
growth  of  a  new  humility.  The  result  was  an  en- 
hanced appreciation  of  the  unfathomable  depths  of 
reality  and  the  insoluble  mysteries  of  existence  which 
had  been  almost  lost  sight  of  for  some  generations. 
It  is  true  that  agnosticism  in  its  polemic  against  the 
intrenched  dogmatism  of  traditional  theology  has 
often  given  scant  evidence  of  the  possession  of  the 
spirit  of  humility.  Many  an  alleged  agnostic,  indeed, 
has  been  as  dogmatic  in  his  negations  as  the  veriest 
gnostic  in  his  affirmations.  But  this  should  not  blind 
us  to  the  real  essence  of  agnosticism.  As  a  declara- 
tion that  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  are  limited, 
and  that  there  are  regions  forever  inaccessible  to 
human  knowledge,  it  stands,  at  any  rate  theoretically, 
in  contrast  with  philosophical  rationalism  and  theolog- 
ical dogmatism,  for  intellectual  humility. 

The  word  agnostic  was  coined  by  Huxley  in  1869, 
but  the  attitude  which  it  was  intended  to  denote  had 
long  been  common.  It  first  found  elaborate  and  sys- 
tematic formulation  in  the  fourth  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  in  the  positivism  of  the  French  philoso- 
pher August  Comte.  According  to  Comte,  we  can 
know  only  phenomena.  The  realm  of  supraphenome- 
nal  reality  is  wholly  closed  to  us.  We  can  deal 
with  given  facts  and  their  relations  one  to  another, 
but  the  inner  nature  of  things,  the  first  cause  and  the 
final  purpose  of  all  existence,  we  can  know  nothing 
about.    Our  knowledge  is,  therefore,  wholly  relative. 


AGNOSTICISM  I47 

Absolute  knowledge  or  knowledge  of  an  absolute  is 
quite  unattainable.  To  reach  the  recognition  of  this 
fact  has  required,  so  Comte  taught,  a  long  develop- 
ment. In  the  childhood  of  the  race,  its  theological 
period,  phenomena  were  traced  to  the  activity  of 
invisible  personal  beings;  later,  in  its  metaphysical 
period,  which  has  its  parallel  in  the  youth  of  the  in- 
dividual, all  was  accounted  for  by  abstract  princi- 
ples or  ideas  which  were  hypostatized  and  given  real- 
ity as  natural  forces  of  one  kind  and  another ;  finally, 
in  the  positivistic  period,  the  age  of  maturity,  such 
explanations  have  been  abandoned  and  scientists  con- 
fine themselves  to  observation  and  experiment,  to  the 
study  of  phenomena  and  the  empirical  laws  under 
which  they  occur  and  by  which  they  are  connected. 
Thus  religion  and  metaphysics  give  way  to  positive 
science  in  which  the  limitations  of  the  human  mind 
are  for  the  first  time  respected  and  sound  knowledge 
is  substituted  for  the  vanities  and  vagaries  of  specu- 
lation. 

In  accordance  with  his  principles  Comte  declared 
it  to  be  quite  impossible  to  know  anything  about  the 
existence  of  God.  We  are  justified  neither  in  assert- 
ing nor  in  denying  his  reality.  Theism  and  atheism 
are  alike  unwarranted.  We  must  be  content  with 
complete  ignorance  touching  all  that  transcends  phe- 
nomena. This  need  not  distress  us,  for  we  may  know 
all  we  need  to  know  in  order  to  live  our  lives  happily, 
successfully,  and  usefully  in  this  phenomenal  world. 
The  way  in  which  Comte  undertook  in  later  years  to 
meet  his  own  religious  needs  and  those  of  others  with 


148         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

his  religion  of  humanity  with  its  extraordinary  devel- 
opment of  cult  and  hierarchy  need  not  detain  us.  Its 
influence  was  slight  and  temporary,  but  his  agnosti- 
cism, which  alone  concerns  us  here,  was  of  the  very 
greatest  significance,  and  its  effects  were  widely  felt, 
both  within  and  without  France. 

A  similar  tendency,  partly  the  fruit  of  Comte's 
positivism,  partly  of  independent  origin,  found  its 
most  notable  English  representatives  in  John  Stuart 
Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer.  The  former,  adopting 
the  empiricism  and  phenomenalism  of  Hume,  agreed 
with  Comte  in  denying  all  knowledge  of  an  absolute, 
or  of  spiritual  realities  lying  beyond  the  bounds  of  ex- 
perience, though  in  a  volume  entitled  Three  Essays 
on  Religion,  published  after  his  death  in  1874,  he 
showed  sympathy  with  theistic  faith,  and  gave  some 
weight  to  the  argument  from  design  in  bearing  evi- 
dence to  the  existence  of  a  benevolent,  but  finite  and 
limited  deity.  The  essays  close  with  the  following 
interesting  passage  :  *'One  elevated  feeling  this  form 
of  religious  idea  admits  of,  which  is  not  open  to  those 
who  believe  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  good  principle 
in  the  universe,  the  feeling  of  helping  God — of  re- 
quiting the  good  he  has  given  by  a  voluntary  coopera- 
tion which  he,  not  being  omnipotent,  really  needs,  and 
by  which  a  somewhat  nearer  approach  may  be  made 
to  the  fulfillment  of  his  purposes.  The  conditions  of 
human  existence  are  highly  favorable  to  the  growth 
of  such  a  feeling,  inasmuch  as  a  battle  is  constantly 
going  on,  in  which  the  humblest  human  creature  is 
not  incapable  of  taking  some  part,  between  the  pow- 


AGNOSTICISM  1 49 

ers  of  good  and  those  of  evil,  and  in  which  every, 
even  the  smallest,  help  to  the  right  side,  has  its  value 
in  promoting  the  very  slow  and  often  almost  insensi- 
ble progress  by  which  good  is  gradually  gaining 
ground  from  evil,  yet  gaining  it  so  visibly  at  con- 
siderable intervals  as  to  promise  the  very  distant  but 
not  uncertain  final  victory  of  Good.  To  do  something 
during  life,  on  even  the  humblest  scale,  if  nothing 
more  is  within  reach,  towards  bringing  this  consum- 
mation ever  so  little  nearer,  is  the  most  animating  and 
invigorating  thought  which  can  inspire  a  human  crea- 
ture; and  that  it  is  destined,  with  or  without  super- 
natural sanctions,  to  be  the  religion  of  the  Future,  I 
cannot  entertain  a  doubt.  But  it  appears  to  me  that 
supernatural  hopes,  in  the  degree  and  kind  in  which 
what  I  have  called  rational  scepticism  does  not  refuse 
to  sanction  them,  may  still  contribute  not  a  little  to 
give  to  this  religion  its  due  ascendency  over  the  human 
mind." 

Most  renowned  of  all  the  modern  representatives 
of  agnosticism  was  Mill's  younger  contemporary, 
Herbert  Spencer,  whose  synthetic  philosophy  has  had 
extraordinary  influence,  not  only  in  England  and 
America,  but  in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  both 
east  and  west.  The  philosopher  of  evolution,  who 
reached  his  belief  in  evolution  independently  of  Dar- 
win, he  was  also  the  most  famous  exponent  of  agnosti- 
cism. In  the  latter,  however,  he  was  much  less  thor- 
oughgoing and  consistent  than  Comte.  Our  knowl- 
edge is  confined  to  phenomena.  We  cannot  penetrate 
beyond  them  to  things  in  themselves,  either  spiritual 


150         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

or  material.  "Deep  down  in  the  very  nature  of  life 
the  relativity  of  our  knowledge  is  discernible.  The 
analysis  of  vital  actions  in  general  leads  not  only  to 
the  conclusion  that  things  in  themselves  cannot  be 
known  to  us;  but  also  to  the  conclusion  that  knowl- 
edge of  them,  were  it  possible,  would  be  useless."  ^ 

But  we  are  driven  by  the  relativity  of  phenomena 
to  assume  the  existence  of  an  absolute,  or  of  an  un- 
knowable somewhat  which  underlies  them  and  consti- 
tutes their  cause.  "We  have  seen  how  in  the  very  as- 
sertion that  all  our  knowledge,  properly  so  called,  is 
Relative,  there  is  involved  the  assertion  that  there  ex- 
ists a  Non-relative.  We  have  seen  how  in  each  step  of 
the  argument  by  which  this  doctrine  is  established, 
the  same  assumption  is  made.  We  have  seen  how, 
upon  the  very  necessity  of  thinking  in  relations,  it 
follows  that  the  Relative  is  itself  inconceivable,  ex- 
cept as  related  to  a  real  Non-relative.  We  have  seen 
that  unless  a  real  Non-relative  or  Absolute  be  postu- 
lated, the  Relative  itself  becomes  absolute;  and  so 
brings  the  argument  to  a  contradiction.  And  on  con- 
templating the  process  of  thought,  we  have  equally 
seen  how  impossible  it  is  to  get  rid  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  actuality  lying  behind  appearances;  and 
how,  from  this  impossibility,  results  our  indestructible 
belief  in  that  actuality."  ^ 

All  science,  according  to  Spencer,  presupposes  an 
absolute  which  can  never  be  brought  within  the  range 
of  observation  or  experiment,  and  a  study  of  the 

^  First  Principles  (1864),  p.  86. 
"Ibid,  p.  96. 


AGNOSTICISM  I5I 

religious  history  of  the  race  convinced  him  that  the 
absolute  was  also  the  background  of  all  religions  and 
their  common  term.  In  all  of  them  awe  is  felt  in  the 
presence  of  an  inscrutable  mystery.  A  reconciliation 
of  science  and  religion  he  therefore  hoped  might  be 
effected  by  a  recognition  of  this  common  factor. 
"Gradually  as  the  limits  of  possible  cognition  are  es- 
tablished, the  causes  of  conflict  will  diminish.  And 
a  permanent  peace  will  be  reached  when  Science  be- 
comes fully  convinced  that  its  explanations  are  prox- 
imate and  relative;  while  Religion  becomes  fully 
convinced  that  the  mystery  it  contemplates  is  ulti- 
mate and  absolute."  ^ 

Thus  science  and  religion  have  to  do  with  two 
altogether  different  territories,  the  former  with  that 
of  the  known,  the  latter  with  that  of  the  unknown. 
Science  moves  in  the  realm  of  knowledge,  religion 
in  that  of  nescience.  "Religion  under  all  its  forms 
is  distinguished  from  everything  else  in  this,  that  its 
subject  matter  is  that  which  passes  the  sphere  of  ex- 
perience." ^  It  might  be  thought,  consequently,  that 
as  scientific  attainments  increase  the  domain  of  re- 
ligion will  grow  steadily  smaller.  But  this  was  far 
from  Spencer's  thought.  Science  is  like  a  sphere 
whose  growth  but  enlarges  its  contact  with  surround- 
ing nescience.  And  to  explore  this  supraphenome- 
nal  region  is  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  forever 
impossible.     A  permanent  function  is  therefore  as- 

*Ibid.,  p.  107. 
■Ibid.,  p.  17. 


152         THE    RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

sured  to  religion  which  no  advances  of  science  can 
ever  take  from  it. 

Spencer  insisted  earnestly  upon  the  truly  religious 
character  of  the  recognition  that  the  absolute  is  un- 
knowable. *'And  yet  this  transcendent  audacity, 
which  claims  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  Power 
manifested  to  us  through  all  existence — nay,  even  to 
stand  behind  that  Power  and  note  the  conditions  to 
its  action — this  it  is  which  passes  current  as  piety! 
May  we  not  without  hesitation  affirm  that  a  sincere 
recognition  of  the  truth  that  our  own  and  all  other 
existence  is  a  mystery  absolutely  and  forever  beyond 
our  comprehension,  contains  more  of  true  religion 
than  all  the  dogmatic  theology  every  written?"^ 

And  yet,  though  it  is  wholly  mysterious  and  in- 
scrutable, there  are,  nevertheless,  certain  things 
which  Spencer  feels  justified  in  saying  about  the 
absolute.  It  is  power  or  energy,  and  it  is  infinite, 
eternal  and  omnipresent.  Whether  it  is  personal  can- 
not be  said.  It  may  be  as  much  above  personality  as 
the  latter  is  above  mere  mechanical  motion.  But,  in 
any  case,  we  cannot  commune  with  it,  or  come  into 
conscious  relation  with  it;  we  can  only  feel  awe  in 
the  contemplation  of  it — the  true  religious  feeling, 
whether  shared  by  scientists  or  by  devotees. 

Spencer's  agnosticism  was  thus  not  altogether  con- 
sistent, for  he  assumed  the  existence  of  the  absolute 
and  assigned  various  attributes  to  it,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  pronounced  it  unknowable.  But  those 
who  ridicule  his  inconsistency  in  this  respect  should 

*Ibid.,  p.  112. 


AGNOSTICISM  153 

bear  in  mind  the  following  striking  passage:  "Very 
likely  there  will  ever  remain  a  need  to  give  shape  to 
that  indefinite  sense  of  an  Ultimate  Existence,  which 
forms  the  basis  of  our  intelligence.  We  shall  always 
be  under  the  necessity  of  contemplating  it  as  some 
mode  of  being;  that  is,  of  representing  it  to  our- 
selves in  some  form  of  thought,  however  vague. 
And  we  shall  not  err  in  doing  this,  so  long  as  we 
treat  every  notion  we  thus  frame  as  merely  a  sym- 
bol, utterly  without  resemblance  to  that  for  which  it 
stands.  Perhaps  the  constant  formation  of  such 
symbols  and  constant  rejection  of  them  as  inade- 
quate, may  be  hereafter,  as  it  has  hitherto  been,  a 
means  of  discipline.  Perpetually  to  construct  ideas 
requiring  the  utmost  stretch  of  our  faculties,  and 
perpetually  to  find  that  such  ideas  must  be  abandoned 
as  futile  imaginations,  may  realize  to  us  more  fully 
than  any  other  course,  the  greatness  of  that  which 
we  vainly  strive  to  grasp.  Such  efforts  and  failures 
may  serve  to  maintain  in  our  minds  a  due  sense  of 
the  incommensurable  difference  between  the  Condi- 
tioned and  the  Unconditioned.  By  continually  seek- 
ing to  know  and  being  continually  thrown  back  with 
a  deepened  conviction  of  the  impossibility  of  know- 
ing, we  may  keep  alive  the  consciousness  that  it  is 
alike  our  highest  wisdom  and  our  highest  duty  to  re- 
gard that  through  which  all  things  exist  as  The  Un- 
knowable." ^ 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Spencer's  agnosticism  was 
none  the  less  influential  because  of  its  inconsistencies. 

*Ibid.,  p.  113. 


154         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Indeed  it  expressed  even  better  than  Comte's  more 
radical  positivism  the  attitude  of  multitudes  in  the 
second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

An  agnosticism  or  scepticism  identical  in  princi- 
ple with  that  of  Comte  and  Spencer  and  sometimes 
even  more  radical  than  the  latter  has  been  common 
in  theological  circles  as  well.  Attention  has  already 
been  called  to  the  scepticism  of  the  later  medieval 
schoolmen,  which  was  made  the  ground  for  an  un- 
questioning submission  to  the  authority  of  super- 
natural revelation.  An  interesting  nineteenth  cen- 
tury illustration  of  the  same  attitude  was  given  by 
a  prominent  English  churchman,  Dean  Mansel  of  St. 
Paul's,  in  his  Bampton  Lectures  for  1852  on  The  Lim- 
its of  Religious  Thought. 

Following  the  celebrated  Scotch  philosopher,  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  Mansel  asserted  the  complete  in- 
conceivability of  the  infinite  or  absolute.  It  is  for 
human  thought  a  tissue  of  contradictions,  and,  while 
it  is  necessary  to  assume  its  existence,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  know  anything  about  it.  "We  are  compelled, 
by  the  constitution  of  our  minds,  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  an  Absolute  and  Infinite  Being — a  be- 
lief which  appears  forced  upon  us,  as  the  complement 
of  our  consciousness  of  the  relative  and  the  finite. 
But  the  instant  we  attempt  to  analyze  the  ideas  thus 
suggested  to  us,  in  the  hope  of  attaining  to  a  positive 
conception  of  the  object  denoted  by  them,  we  are  on 
every  side  involved  in  inextricable  confusion  and 
contradiction."  ^     "The  Absolute  and  the  Infinite  are 

*  The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  fifth  edition  (1870),  p.  47. 


AGNOSTICISM  155 

thus,  like  the  Inconceivable  and  the  Imperceptible, 
names  indicating,  not  a  possible  object  of  thought  or 
of  consciousness,  but  one  exempt  from  the  conditions 
under  which  human  consciousness  is  possible.  The 
attempt  to  construct  in  thought  an  object  answering 
to  such  names,  necessarily  results  in  contradiction; — 
a  contradiction,  however,  which  we  have  ourselves 
produced  by  the  attempt  to  think ; — which  exists  in  the 
act  of  thought,  but  not  beyond  it ; — which  destroys  the 
conception  as  such,  but  indicates  nothing  concerning 
the  existence  or  non-existence  of  that  which  we  try 
to  conceive.  It  proves  our  own  impotence,  and  it 
proves  nothing  more.  Or  rather,  it  indirectly  leads 
us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  that  Infinite  which 
we  cannot  conceive;  for  the  denial  of  its  existence 
involves  a  contradiction,  no  less  than  the  assertion 
of  its  conceivability.  We  thus  learn  that  the  prov- 
inces of  Reason  and  Faith  are  not  co-extensive ; — that 
it  is  a  duty,  enjoined  by  Reason  itself,  to  believe  in 
that  which  we  are  unable  to  comprehend."  ^ 

The  conclusion  of  this  passage  recalls  Jacobi's 
resort  to  faith.  But  Mansel  differed  with  Jacobi  in 
appealing  to  the  authority  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion ;  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  reason 
is  quite  incompetent  to  pass  judgment  upon  the  char- 
acter or  contents  of  any  alleged  revelation.  If  an 
alleged  revelation  be  attested  by  adequate  evidence 
it  must  be  accepted  without  question,  even  if  it  con- 
tradict   our    notions    of    truth    and    righteousness.  ^ 

*Ibid.,  p.  68  ff. 

'  Cf .,  e.g.,  ibid.,  pp.  ia6.  162. 


156         THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

One  is  inevitably  reminded  here  of  Hume's  remark 
at  the  close  of  his  Dialogues  Concerning  Natural  Re- 
ligion, that  "to  be  a  philosophical  sceptic  is,  in  a  man 
of  letters,  the  first  and  most  essential  step  toward 
being  a  sound,  believing  Christian." 

Mansel's  attitude  in  this  matter  is  similar  to 
Bishop  Butler's,  in  his  Analogy,  but  even  more  ex- 
treme. His  purpose,  indeed,  was  identical  with  But- 
ler's, to  defend  Christianity  by  cutting  the  ground 
from  under  its  opponents.  But  the  method  adopted 
was  as  dangerous  as  that  of  the  older  apologist. 

Mansel's  Lectures,  which  reproduced  upon  the 
basis  of  the  modern  critical  philosophy  the  posi- 
tion of  the  late  medieval  schoolmen,  of  Pascal  and 
Bayle  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  of  William 
Law  in  the  eighteenth,  owe  their  significance  chiefly 
to  the  fact  that  they  were  the  immediate  source  of 
the  agnosticism  of  Spencer,  who  drew  from  them  his 
doctrine  of  the  unknowable.  That  they  were  influ- 
ential in  driving  many  into  scepticism,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  though  they  were  hailed  by  not  a  few  Eng- 
lish churchmen  as  the  one  sure  way  of  stemming  the 
rising  tide  of  unbelief. 

But,  though  Mansel's  position  was  not  an  uncom- 
mon one,  and  is  not  now,  he  and  others  like  him  are 
not  the  most  characteristic  representatives  of  agnos- 
ticism within  modern  religious  circles.  His  resort  to 
authority  and  his  unquestioning  submission  to  it  are 
uncongenial  or  impossible  to  most  thinking  men  to- 
day. The  typical  religious  phenomenon  of  our  own 
times  is  rather  the  agnostic  who  is  content  to  remain 


AGNOSTICISM  1 57 

wholly  ignorant  of  many  things  which  in  other  days 
men  could  not  be  happy  without  knowing.  It  has 
become  easier  than  it  once  was  to  renounce  absolute 
knowledge,  or  the  knowledge  of  ultimate  realities. 
On  the  one  hand  philosophy  and  science  have  so  per- 
sistently preached  the  impossibility  of  such  knowl- 
edge that  we  have  widely  ceased  to  concern  ourselves 
about  it;  and  on  the  other  hand  the  realm  of  accessi- 
ble phenomena  has  been  so  tremendously  broadened 
and  enriched  that  we  find  abundant  employment  for 
our  best  powers  in  its  investigation. 

Men  are  not  so  eager  to  proclaim  themselves  agnos- 
tics as  they  were  a  generation  ago.  The  influence  of 
Spencer,  and  of  agnosticism  as  a  specific  and  self- 
conscious  movement,  has  decidedly  waned.  But  in 
the  more  general  sense  just  indicated  agnosticism  was 
never  more  widespread  than  it  is  to-day.  Whether 
this  is  to  be  a  permanent  situation,  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  At  any  rate  it  is  the  existing  situation,  and 
no  one  can  at  all  understand  modern  religious  ideas 
who  fails  to  take  account  of  it.  A  few  representa- 
tive thinkers  may  be  referred  to  as  examples  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  agnosticism  in  the  religious  sphere. 
According  to  the  philosopher  Jacobi,  as  already  seen, 
faith  gives  us  the  assurance  of  the  existence  of  God, 
but  it  cannot  attain  to  a  clear  knowledge  of  his  na- 
ture and  attributes.  According  to  Schleiermacher, 
God  is  immediately  present  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  religious  man,  and  is  apprehended  by  feeling,  but 
all  attempts  to  penetrate  to  the  inner  nature  of  God, 
and  to  describe  him  as  he  is  in  himself  are  vain.    All 


158        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

we  can  know  is  our  experience  of  God.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  the  whole  range  of  spiritual  reality. 
We  can  know  it  as  we  find  it  in  our  own  experience, 
but  beyond  that  we  cannot  go.  Jacobi  and  Schleier- 
macher  are  therefore  not  in  the  least  agnostic  as  to 
the  existence  of  God  and  the  spiritual  realm,  but  they 
both  recognize  that  our  knowledge  of  them  is  very 
limited. 

Much  more  radical  was  the  position  of  Kant.  Ac- 
cording to  him  God  is  postulated  in  order  to  effect 
the  union  of  virtue  and  happiness,  but  it  is  not  per- 
missible to  hypostatize  God,  and  it  is  impossible  either 
to  come  into  personal  relations  with  him  or  to  attain 
any  speculative  knowledge  of  him.  "Theoretically," 
so  Kant  says,  "we  do  not  by  the  strongest  efforts  of 
reason  come  at  all  nearer  to  the  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  God,  the  reality  of  the  highest  good,  and 
the  prospect  of  a  future  life;  for  we  possess  no  in- 
sight into  the  nature  of  supersensuous  objects.  Prac- 
tically, however,  we  make  these  objects  for  ourselves, 
as  we  regard  the  idea  of  them  helpful  to  our  reason's 
ultimate  aim."  ^  God,  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  im- 
mortality are  "ideas  made  by  ourselves  with  a  practi- 
cal purpose,  which  must  not  be  given  theoretical 
value,  or  they  will  turn  theology  into  theosophy, 
moral  teleology  into  mysticism,  and  psychology  into 
pneumatology,  and  so  put  things,  a  knowledge  of 
which  we  might  make  use  of  in  practical  matters,  over 

^  Ueber   die   Fortschritte   der   Metophysik   seit   Leibnitz   und 
Wolif;  Werke,  V.  3,  P-  130^ 


AGNOSTICISM  1 59 

into  a  transcendent  sphere,  where  they  are  and  remain 
entirely  inaccessible  to  our  reason."  ^ 

This  means,  to  use  a  modern  phrase,  that  the  pos- 
tulate of  God  is  a  value  judgment,  not  an  existential 
judgment.  We  assume  the  existence  of  God  in  order 
to  validate  and  rationalize  our  moral  living ;  but,  hav- 
ing assumed  his  existence  for  this  purpose,  we  have 
no  right  to  give  the  idea  independent  objective  valid- 
ity, and  make  it  the  premise  for  conclusions  of  an- 
other sort  altogether.  As  far  as  we  are  carried  by 
the  necessity  which  gives  us  God,  we  have  a  right  to 
go,  but  no  further. 

According  to  Kant,  in  postulating  God  in  order  to 
bring  about  the  ultimate  union  of  virtue  and  the  hap- 
piness corresponding  therewith,  we  postulate  him  as 
the  wise  and  powerful  creator  and  ruler  of  the  world, 
for  otherwise  he  could  not  so  control  the  world  as  to 
make  it  contribute  to  the  happiness  of  the  virtuous. 
We  also  postulate  his  holiness  or  supreme  regard  for 
virtue.  Thus  the  God  whom  we  assume  has  certain 
definite  characteristics,  and  is  not  mere  vague  and 
undefined  immensity.  But  he  remains  a  moral  pos- 
tulate, and  must  not  be  employed  as  the  foundation 
for  metaphysical  and  scientific  constructions. 

The  German  theologian  Ritschl  followed  Kant  in 
regarding  God  as  a  postulate  of  the  moral  will  and 
finding  him  in  the  sphere  of  values,  as  also  in  recog- 
nizing that  we  cannot  transcend  phenomena  and 
know  an  absolute  lying  back  of  them.  But  he  was 
enabled  at  the  same  time  to  assert  the  objective  real- 

*Ibid.,  p.  143.    Cf.  also  his  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft,  §§  88-90. 


l6o         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ity  of  God  without  abandoning  the  Kantian  platform 
by  accepting  Lotze's  modification  of  Kant's  epis- 
temology.  In  the  third  edition  of  his  Rechtfertigung 
und  Versohnung  he  says:  "In  European  culture  we 
have  to  do  with  three  forms  of  epistemology.  The 
first  arose  under  Plato's  influence  and  prevailed  in 
scholasticism.  Wherever  its  influence  extends  we 
find  the  notion  that,  while  the  thing  acts  upon  us,  in- 
deed, by  means  of  its  changing  properties,  and 
arouses  our  sensations  and  ideas,  it  is  itself  at  rest 
behind  its  properties  as  an  unchanging  unity  of  attri- 
butes. The  simplest  example  of  this  view  in  scholas- 
tic dogmatics  is  the  exposition  of  the  nature  and  at- 
tributes of  God  on  the  one  side,  and  of  God's  activi- 
ties in  relation  to  the  world  and  to  the  salvation  of 
men  on  the  other.  The  peculiarity  of  this  theory  of 
knowledge  is  also  apparent  in  the  fact  that  it  is  pre- 
tended that  one  can  know  the  thing  in  itself  before 
it  acts.  It  is  forgotten,  namely,  that  the  thing  in 
itself  is  only  the  abiding  picture  derived  from  re- 
peated observation  of  the  operations  which,  in  a  par- 
ticular place,  have  regularly  affected  our  senses. 
The  fault  of  this  definition  of  the  thing  or  object  of 
knowledge  is  evident  in  the  inconsistency  that  the 
thing  is  thought  of  as  at  rest  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  is  supposed  to  work  in  its  visible  properties. 
The  contradiction  appears  also  in  another  form,  that 
the  thing  at  rest  is  represented  as  existing  in  a  plane 
behind  that  in  which  its  alleged  properties  are  placed. 
It  thus  becomes  impossible  to  understand  these  phe- 
nomena as  qualities  of  the  thing  in  itself  which  is 


AGNOSTICISM  l6l 

separated  from  them.  The  second  form  of  epistem- 
ology  was  given  us  by  Kant,  who  limited  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  understanding  to  the  world  of  phe- 
nomena, but  pronounced  unknowable  the  thing  or 
things  in  themselves  in  whose  changing  states  the 
changes  in  the  world  of  phenomena  are  grounded. 
The  latter  judgment  contains  a  sound  criticism  of 
the  scholastic  interpretation  of  a  thing.  But  the  for- 
mer is  not  sufficiently  removed  from  scholasticism  to 
escape  its  error.  For  a  world  of  phenomena  can  be 
regarded  as  the  object  of  our  knowledge  only  when 
it  is  assumed  that  in  them  something  real,  namely, 
the  thing,  appears  to  us,  or  is  the  cause  of  our  sen- 
sation and  perception.  Otherwise  the  phenomenon 
is  only  an  illusion.  Kant  therefore  contradicts  by 
his  use  of  the  conception  of  phenomenon  his  propo- 
sition that  real  things  are  knowable.  The  third  form 
of  epistemology  was  taught  by  Lotze.  We  recog- 
nize in  the  phenomena  which,  in  a  definite  place,  un- 
dergo change  to  a  limited  extent  and  in  a  particular 
order,  the  thing  as  the  cause  of  its  properties  which 
affect  us,  as  the  end  which  they  serve  as  means,  as 
the  law  of  their  regular  alterations."  ^  It  was  Lotze's 
theory  of  knowledge  to  which  Ritschl  gave  his  own 
assent. 

Ritschl  also  gave  content  to  his  idea  of  God  by 
appealing  to  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
revealer  of  God,  so  that  in  both  ways  he  was  less  of 
an  agnostic  than  Kant.     But  he  was  true  to  the  lat- 

^  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,  third  edition,  Vol.  Ill,  p. 
19  ff. 


1 62         THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

ter  in  confining  the  idea  of  God  to  the  sphere  of  val- 
ues and  refusing  to  employ  it  for  theoretical  or  specu- 
lative purposes.  He  was  true  to  him  also  in  his  con- 
tention that  theology  in  general  has  to  do  exclusively 
with  judgments  of  value,  which  are  distinguished 
from  theoretical  judgments,  in  that  they  state,  not 
the  objective  nature  or  relations  of  things,  but  their 
worth  to  us.  Religion  is  a  practical  matter,  and  the- 
ology is  nothing  more  than  the  formulation  of  its 
principles,  all  of  which  are  purely  practical.  Agnos- 
ticism touching  all  that  transcends  or  is  unrelated  to 
our  experience  is,  therefore,  according  to  Ritschl,  the 
only  proper  attitude  for  the  theologian. 

Agnosticism  on  the  part  of  religious  men  appears 
in  modem  times  not  simply  in  connection  with  theism 
and  not  simply  among  the  followers  of  Ritschl.  It 
is  very  common  in  all  religious  circles,  and  affects 
many  doctrines  which  were  once  asserted  with  com- 
plete assurance  by  all  religious  men.  Notable  among 
these  is  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  In  the  ancient 
and  medieval  church  this  was  an  absolutely  funda- 
mental belief,  and  never  was  its  fundamental  charac- 
ter more  insisted  upon  than  in  the  age  of  rational- 
ism, when  it  was  regarded  by  radicals  as  well  as  con- 
servatives as  one  of  the  essential  tenets  of  natural  re- 
ligion, established  by  human  reason  quite  independ- 
ently of  a  supernatural  revelation.  Kant  associated 
it  with  God  and  freedom  as  an  equally  valid  and 
necessary  postulate  of  the  practical  reason.  But 
Schleiermacher  questioned  its  importance,  and  sub- 
stituted for  it  the  notion  of  eternal  life  as  the  present 


AGNOSTICISM  1 63 

consciousness  of  God.  Ritschl,  too,  though  less  nega- 
tive than  Schleiermacher  in  his  attitude  toward  per- 
sonal immortality,  defined  eternal  life  as  victory  over 
the  world  even  now  and  here.  This  aspect  of  it  has 
been  widely  emphasized  by  modern  theologians,  eter- 
nal life  being  very  commonly  interpreted  qualita- 
tively instead  of  temporally.  The  religious  interest 
having  thus  changed,  a  degree  of  agnosticism  touch- 
ing the  future  life  is  tolerable  to  religious  men  to- 
day, which  would  have  been  quite  intolerable  in  other 
days.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  in  modern  sermonic 
literature  the  subjects  of  heaven  and  hell  bulk  far 
less  largely  than  they  once  did.  In  the  absence  of 
experimental  proof  few  present-day  thinkers  are  able 
to  count  immortality  as  other  than  a  more  or  less 
well-grounded  hope.^ 

In  general  the  agnostic  temper  appears  to-day  not 
so  much  in  scepticism  touching  this  or  that  particu- 
lar doctrine  as  in  an  instinctive  unwillingness  to  dog- 
matize about  matters  lying  beyond  the  confines  of 
personal  experience.  Religious  men  hope  and  be-' 
lieve,  perhaps,  as  much  as  they  ever  did,  but  they  are 
more  apt  than  in  other  days  to  distinguish  their  hopes 
and  beliefs  from  proven  facts  and  to  refrain  from 
insisting  that  they  must  be  accepted  by  all  men  of 
sound  mind  and  good  will.  That  such  agnosticism 
^  Many  of  the  Ingersoll  Lectures  on  immortality  are  significant 
in  this  connection.  For  an  account  of  the  history  of  the  belief 
in  immortality  and  of  some  of  the  grounds  which  have  pro- 
moted the  widespread  indifference  on  the  subject  reference  may 
be  made  to  the  admirable  little  book  by  William  Adams  Brown, 
entitled,  The  Christian  Hope  (1912). 


164         THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

is  very  common  to-day  within  religious  circles  there 
can  be  no  possible  doubt,  and  the  contrast  between 
our  own  and  earlier  ages  is  in  no  respect  more 
marked  than  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  simply  a  forced 
but  a  willing  agnosticism. 

This  brief  sketch  of  agnosticism  might  seem  to  sug- 
gest that  it  has  had  a  wholly  negative  influence  upon 
Christian  faith,  undermining  traditional  belief  but  con- 
tributing nothing  positive  to  modern  religious  thought. 
This  conclusion,  however,  is  decidedly  erroneous.  For 
one  thing  agnosticism  has  served  to  shift  the  emphasis 
at  many  points,  and  in  doing  so  has  given  new  signifi- 
cance to  certain  ranges  of  religious  value.  As  the 
power  of  the  mind  to  know  supraphenomenal  reality 
has  been  denied,  those  matters  which  come  within  the 
range  of  experience  have  received  new  recognition,  and 
particularly  the  practical  side  of  religion  has  attained  a 
greater  prominence.  In  this  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found 
one  of  the  secrets  of  the  widespread  interpretation  of 
Christianity  in  social  terms,  which  is  so  marked  a  fea- 
ture of  present-day  thought.  The  interest  of  modern 
Christians  in  the  transformation  of  existing  social  in- 
stitutions, or  in  their  permeation  with  the  spirit  of 
Christ — a  subject  of  which  I  shall  speak  more  particu- 
larly in  a  later  chapter — is  intimately  bound  up  with 
agnosticism  touching  the  life  of  another  world  and  the 
nature  of  ultimate  reality,  and  is  hardly  to  be  under- 
stood apart  from  it.  In  general,  attention  to  the  near- 
at-hand,  rather  than  the  far-away,  has  been  promoted 
by  agnosticism,  and,  while  those  doctrines  dealing  with 
the  far-away  have  as  a  consequence  suffered  eclipse, 


AGNOSTICISM  165 

those  that  have  to  do  with  the  near-at-hand — with  im- 
mediate duties  and  opportunities  and  with  present  sanc- 
tions and  inspirations — have  been  greatly  enriched.  In 
blocking  the  path  to  the  knowledge  of  transcendent 
things  agnosticism  has  forwarded  the  search  for  spir- 
itual values  in  the  immediate  present,  and,  as  a  result, 
the  existence  of  such  values,  even  within  the  frame- 
work of  a  finite,  human,  and  mundane  society,  quite 
apart  from  its  relation  to  infinity  and  eternity,  has  been 
convincingly  demonstrated.  In  so  far  our  conceptions 
of  religion  and  of  life  have  been  enriched  and  tradi- 
tional interpretations  of  both  have  been  modified. 
That  there  has  been  no  gain  in  all  this  it  would  be 
idle  to  assert,  even  though  one  were  to  think  the  gain 
more  than  overbalanced  by  the  loss.  At  any  rate, 
whether  one  laments  or  rejoices  at  the  existing  situa- 
tion, the  change  of  emphasis  has  already  had  large 
results,  not  only  in  Christian  practice,  but  also  in 
Christian  theory,  and  it  is  bound  in  the  future  to  have 
even  larger.. 


CHAPTER    IX 

EVOLUTION 

Evolutionary  ideas  were  common  among  the 
Greeks,  but  in  the  Middle  Ages  they  were  almost 
wholly  wanting.  The  account  of  the  creation  of  the 
world  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  and  of  the  pres- 
ervation of  animal  life  in  the  story  of  the  flood  con- 
trolled thought  upon  the  subject,  and  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  the  various  existing  forms  of  life 
had  come  directly  from  the  hand  of  God.  But  it 
was  inevitable,  when  the  theological  age  of  science 
had  passed  and  men  began  to  seek  a  natural  explana- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  that  the  question 
of  the  origin  of  these  multitudinous  forms  of  life 
should  again  thrust  itself  upon  the  attention  of  think- 
ing men.  Descartes  gave  a  wholly  mechanical  ac- 
count of  the  world  of  nature,  and  even  suggested  the 
possibility  of  the  production  of  the  higher  forms  of 
life  from  the  lower  by  a  process  of  mechanical  evo- 
lution. He  was  careful,  however,  to  add  that  this 
was  not  his  own  opinion,  but  was  put  forth  only  as 
one  among  many  conceivable  hypotheses,  thus  pro- 
tecting himself  against  the  wrath  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities. 

i66 


EVOLUTION  167 

Leibnitz,  a  generation  later,  enunciated  what 
amounted  to  a  doctrine  of  evolution  on  a  large  scale. 
The  essence  of  his  cosmology  was  the  notion  of  im- 
manent and  ever-active  force.  For  dead  matter  inert 
and  moved  only  from  without  he  substituted  a  mat- 
ter all  alive  with  energy.  And  he  emphasized  not 
simply  the  presence  and  constant  activity  of  force, 
but  also  its  continuity.  There  are  no  gaps  in  the  uni- 
verse, no  points  at  which  the  operation  of  the  in- 
dwelling forces  stops  and  a  new  beginning  has  to  be 
made  under  the  impulse  of  an  outside  power.  From 
the  beginning  to  the  end,  from  the  bottom  to  the  top, 
there  is  no  break  in  the  chain.  Still  further,  there  is 
constant  progress  in  the  universe;  not  a  mere  flux  of 
advancing  and  receding  forces,  a  chaos  without  end 
or  aim,  but  a  steady  march  toward  the  goal  of  per- 
fection. The  advance  is  slow,  to  be  sure,  and  the 
forward  steps  are  infinitesimally  small,  but  they  are 
also  infinitely  numerous,  and  hence  the  progress  is 
real  and  continuous.  Here  was  the  secret  of  Leib- 
nitz's optimism.  Not  that  the  universe  is  perfect,  but 
that  it  is  steadily  though  slowly  moving  toward  per- 
fection through  the  constant  play  of  forces  inherent 
in  its  very  constitution.  This,  of  course,  was  a  doc- 
trine of  evolution  on  a  large  and  massive  scale. 

In  his  own  land  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  was  for 
long  neither  appreciated  nor  understood.  Wolff,  the 
systematizer  and  popularizer  of  it,  in  fixing  his  atten- 
tion upon  the  criteria  of  reality  which  Leibnitz  had 
simply  taken  over  from  Descartes,  lost  sight  alto- 
gether of  Leibnitz's  real  contributions,  and  he  was 


1 68         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

made  in  his  hands  the  philosopher  of  rationalism  in 
which  artificial  and  external  conceptions  of  the  uni- 
verse were  carried  to  the  farthest  possible  extreme. 
In  France,  however,  he  was  read  to  better  purpose 
by  a  number  of  thinkers  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  the  result  was  the  rapid  spread  of  the  idea  of 
evolution  and  its  application  on  the  one  hand  in  the 
realm  of  physical  science  and  on  the  other  in  that  of 
human  history.  In  various  writings,  published  about 
the  middle  of  the  century,  the  idea  of  evolution  ap- 
peared in  an  extreme  and  more  or  less  fanciful  form, 
and  quite  without  scientific  justification.  So,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  works  of  Demaillet,  Bonnet,  and  Robi- 
net,  who  pictured  an  evolution  of  all  life,  including 
that  of  man,  from  the  simplest  forms  of  inorganic 
matter. 

About  the  same  time  evolutionary  ideas  began  to 
find  somewhat  guarded  expression  in  the  writings  of 
the  great  French  naturalist  Buffon,  and  his  pupil  La- 
marck, at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
became  an  ardent  champion  of  a  thoroughgoing  doc- 
trine of  biological  evolution.  In  agreement  with  his 
English  contemporary.  Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin,  who 
was  also  a  convinced  evolutionist,  he  found  the  prin- 
cipal factor  of  the  process  in  the  transmission  of 
traits  acquired  through  adaptation  to  environment. 
Because  of  his  zealous  advocacy,  continued  over 
thirty  years,  the  whole  notion  of  evolution  came  to 
be  generally  identified  with  his  particular  theory,  and, 
while  it  gained  some  adherents,  including  the  English 


EVOLUTION  169 

philosopher,  Herbert  Spencer,  it  suffered  from  his 
extreme  and  often  grotesque  hypotheses. 

In  Germany  Goethe  early  adopted  evolutionary 
ideas,  and  by  scientific  experiment,  and  even  more  by 
his  poetry,  promoted  their  currency  among  his  coun- 
trymen. A  wholesale  doctrine  of  evolution  was 
championed  by  his  contemporary,  the  philosopher 
Schelling,  in  his  Naturphilosophie.  But  Schelling, 
and  after  him  Hegel,  connected  the  evolution  of  na- 
ture with  the  notion  of  the  absolute,  and  thus  gave  it 
a  metaphysical  character,  which  tended  in  the  end  to 
discredit  it  in  the  eyes  of  genuine  scientists. 

Meanwhile  evolutionary  ideas  were  becoming 
widely  controlling  in  astronomy  through  the  general 
acceptance  of  the  nebular  hypothesis  of  Kant  and  La- 
place, as  also  in  geology,  where  the  labors  of  Hutton, 
and  particularly  of  Lyell,  broke  down  the  old  theory 
of  catastrophism  and  the  old  idea  of  repeated  crea- 
tion. Lyell's  epoch-making  Principles  of  Geology 
appeared  in  1830  and  strengthened  the  case  for  bio- 
logical evolution  by  supplying  the  analogy  of  a  grad- 
ual development  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  also  by 
furnishing  fossil  evidence  of  life  upon  the  earth  ages 
before  it  had  been  supposed  to  exist,  and  in  many 
cases  in  such  forms  as  to  bridge  apparently  impassa- 
ble chasms  between  existing  species.  Soon  afterward 
came  the  establishment  of  the  doctrine  of  the  corre- 
lation of  forces  through  the  labors  of  Joule  and  oth- 
ers. All  this,  promoting,  as  it  did,  the  belief  in  the 
unity  of  process  and  of  force  throughout  nature,  con- 


170        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

tributed  to  the  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  evolution 
in  every  line. 

One  consideration  still  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
notion  of  biological  evolution.  No  principle  had  been 
discovered  which  seemed  adequate  to  account  for  the 
differentiation  of  the  infinitely  varied  forms  of  vege- 
table and  animal  life.  Already  in  1844  the  Vestiges 
of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation,  issued  anony- 
mously, but  since  attributed  to  Robert  Chambers,  had 
summarized  the  arguments  for  biological  as  well  as 
for  cosmical  and  geological  evolution  in  very  com- 
plete fashion,  and  had  commanded  wide  attention. 
And  in  1852  Herbert  Spencer  published  an  essay  on 
The  Development  Hypothesis  containing  a  powerful 
argument  for  the  progressive  evolution  of  the  whole 
universe,  including  man  and  society.  But  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  plausible  theory  to  render  the  process  cred- 
ible, most  scientists  still  withheld  their  assent.  In 
fact  the  current  of  scientific  opinion,  in  reaction 
against  the  many  unfounded  conjectures  and  unsound 
conclusions  of  Lamarck  and  the  metaphysical  specu- 
lations of  Schelling  and  Hegel,  had  for  some  time 
been  setting  in  the  opposite  direction,  when,  in  1858, 
came  the  enunciation  of  the  hypothesis  of  natural  se- 
lection by  Charles  Darwin  and  Alfred  Wallace,  and 
in  1859  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  supplied  a  wealth 
of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  hypothesis  which  at  once 
put  the  whole  subject  of  evolution  on  a  new  and 
higher  plane. 

Biological  science  was  now  in  possession  of  what 
it  had  long  been  waiting  for,  a  satisfactory  explana- 


EVOLUTION  171 

tion  of  a  vast  mass  of  facts  which  had  been  steadily 
accumulating  since  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The 
acceptance  of  Darwin's  theory  was  immediate  and 
widespread.  It  has  since  been  supplemented  and 
modified,  and  even  rejected  by  many  scientists.  But 
in  the  meantime  evolution  has  established  itself  as  a 
well  authenticated  biological  law,  and  the  differences 
of  opinion  among  scientific  men  have  to  do  as  a  rule 
only  with  its  method  and  with  the  forces  that  have 
brought  it  about.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  now  seen 
that  evolution  is  merely  an  expression  of  the  law  of 
continuity,  which  is  a  presupposition  of  all  scientific 
proof.  Continuity  being  once  assumed,  development 
in  some  form  is  a  necessary  consequence.  And  hence 
attacks  upon  any  particular  theory  of  evolution  do 
not  in  the  least  weaken  the  scientific  validity  of  the 
general  conception. 

As  I  have  said  there  are  many  differences  of  opin- 
ion among  scientists  touching  the  method  and  the  fac- 
tors of  evolution,  but  these  differences  have  com- 
paratively little  significance  for  religious  thought. 
Whether  evolution  is  from  within  or  without ;  whether 
it  is  a  mere  unfolding  of  that  which  already  exists,  or 
is  creative  of  what  is  truly  new ;  whether  acquired  traits 
are  transmitted;  whether  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
the  sole  agency,  or  only  one  among  many  agencies 
in  the  evolutionary  process;  whether  the  struggle  for 
the  life  of  others  is  to  be  recognized  as  an  equally  im- 
portant factor,  as  maintained  by  Henry  Drummond 
in  his  Lowell  lectures  on  The  Ascent  of  Man — 
all  this,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  religious  thinker, 


1/2         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

is  matter  of  minor  concern.  The  main  fact  is  not 
the  currency  of  any  particular  theory  of  evolution 
and  its  factors,  but  the  prevalence  of  the  general  be- 
lief in  evolution,  its  all  but  universal  acceptance  by 
the  mind  of  to-day. 

The  conception  of  evolution  which  became  at  length 
dominant,  as  has  been  seen,  in  the  realm  of  biological 
science  was  carried  over  soon  after  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  into  the  field  of  human  his- 
tory. The  notion  of  progress  was  already  a  com- 
monplace. With  it  was  combined  the  idea  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  immanent  and  ever-active  force,  and  thus 
a  genuine  theory  of  human  development  was  reached 
and  the  modern  idea  of  history  made  possible.  Reac- 
tion had  already  begun  against  the  narrow  and  unhis- 
torical  rationalism  of  the  age  with  its  fixed  and  arti- 
ficial standards.  A  love  for  classical  antiquity  was 
one  of  the  first  signs  of  the  reaction,  and  it  resulted 
in  a  second  renaissance  in  Germany.  Interest  in  the 
past  thus  started  grew  rapidly,  but  it  was  the  idea 
of  development  that  gave  the  new  historical  interest 
its  formula,  and  out  of  it  modern  historical  science 
was  really  born.  The  earliest  important  work  re- 
vealing the  new  spirit  in  Germany  was  the  Erzie- 
hung  des  Menschengeschlechts,  written  or  edited 
by  Lessing  and  published  in  1780.  This  little  tract 
was  epoch-making.  It  claimed  that  revelation  is  to 
the  race  what  education  is  to  the  individual.  Edu- 
cation is  revelation,  and  revelation  is  education.  From 
the  beginning  God  has  been  training  mankind  by 
means  of  revelation.     The  Old  Testament  and  the 


EVOLUTION  173 

New  are  simply  stages  in  the  process,  but  they  are 
not  final.  Christianity  itself  is  only  a  step  in  the  evo- 
lution of  the  highest  spiritual  religion.  God  teaches 
men  one  great  truth  after  another  as  they  are  ready 
for  it,  and  at  no  period  is  the  revelation  final  and 
complete.  The  principle  of  the  development  of  hu- 
manity under  divine  leading  controlled  this  little  work, 
and  though  it  was  concerned  particularly  with  the 
religious  question,  it  had  large  effects  in  other  lines 
as  well. 

Even  more  important  was  the  influence  of  the  the- 
ologian and  poet  Herder.  According  to  him,  nature 
and  spirit  are  only  the  elements  of  one  great  organism 
which  necessarily  belong  together  and  mutually  con- 
dition each  other.  The  lower  exists  for  the  sake  of 
the  higher  and  all  for  the  sake  of  the  whole.  In  a 
brief  essay,  published  in  1774,  and  entitled  Auch  eine 
Philosophic  der  Geschichte  der  Bildttng  der  Mensch- 
heit,  he  says :  "Has  there  not  been  progress  and  de- 
velopment in  a  higher  sense?  The  growing  tree,  the 
struggling  man,  must  pass  through  various  stages  al- 
ways progressing.  But  the  striving  is  not  simply 
individual  and  temporal,  it  is  eternal.  No  one  is  alone 
in  his  age;  he  builds  on  what  goes  before.  The  past 
and  the  present  are  the  bases  of  the  future.  This, 
the  analysis  of  nature  and  of  God's  works  in  general, 
shows.  Thus  it  is  also  with  the  human  race.  The 
Egyptian  could  not  be  without  the  Oriental ;  the  Greek 
built  on  both;  the  Roman  rose  upon  the  shoulders 
of  the  entire  world.  Genuine  progress,  constant  de- 
velopment, even  if  no  individual  gain  anything  there- 


174        THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

by,  this  is  the  purpose  of  God  in  history."  It  was  in 
this  spirit  that  Herder  wrote  his  Ideen  zur  Philosophic 
der  Geschichte  der  Menschheit,  the  first  part  of  which 
was  issued  in  1784.  Indeed,  this  elaborate  and  im- 
portant work  was  simply  an  attempt  to  trace  the  de- 
velopment on  a  large  scale,  beginning  with  the  very 
commencement  of  human  life  and  endeavoring  to 
show  at  every  stage  the  forces  which  have  affected 
and  shaped  the  development.  Herder  anticipated  both 
Schelling  and  Hegel  in  his  evolutionary  world  view, 
and  his  influence  upon  modern  thought  has  been  far 
greater  than  is  commonly  realized. 

Equally  significant  was  the  absolute  idealism  of  He- 
gel with  its  conception  of  the  universe  both  of  nature 
and  of  man  as  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  self- 
consciousness  of  the  absolute.  His  idea  particularly  of 
human  history  as  the  field  for  the  self-realization  of 
God  gave  a  new  dignity  and  fascination  to  historical 
study.  In  it,  according  to  Hegel,  the  student  is  deal- 
ing not  with  mere  fortuitous  and  meaningless  events, 
succeeding  one  another  without  rhyme  or  reason,  but 
rather  with  an  orderly  development  proceeding  ac- 
cording to  well  established  laws  and  charged  with 
eternal  significance.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Hegel's 
theory  of  evolution  did  much  to  arouse  an  enthusiasm 
for  history  and  so  in  spite  of  its  a  priori  and  artificial 
character  to  promote  in  the  end  the  interests  of  his- 
torical science. 

The  changed  conception  of  human  history  as  a 
process  of  evolution,  like  the  changed  conception  of 
nature,  took  increasing  possession  of  the  nineteenth 


EVOLUTION  175 

century,  until  it  became  everywhere  dominant,  and 
the  older  static  notions  in  both  spheres  were  almost 
completely  crowded  out.  The  general  tendency,  as 
has  been  seen,  was  much  older  than  Darwinism,  but 
the  authority  which  the  latter  acquired  in  the  scien- 
tific world  gave  the  notion  of  evolution  a  new  stand- 
ing, and  it  speedily  became  controlling  in  every  sphere. 
The  result  is  that  all  our  thinking  to-day  proceeds 
largely  along  evolutionary  lines.  Individuals  and  in- 
stitutions are  alike  looked  upon  as  organisms  and  as 
subject  to  the  general  laws  of  development.  To  un- 
derstand existing  forms  of  any  kind  we  recognize 
that  we  must  study  their  origin  and  trace  their  growth. 
The  universe,  as  we  know  it,  has  not  come  ready 
made  from  the  hand  of  a  creator;  in  all  its  parts  it  is 
the  fruit  of  a  long  and  gradual  process  of  evolution. 
The  influence  of  the  idea  of  evolution  within  the 
realm  of  religious  thought  has  been  simply  tremen- 
dous. At  first  it  was  widely  resisted  in  the  supposed 
interest  both  of  religion  and  morality.  And  even 
when  it  came  to  be  generally  recognized  that  evolu- 
tion has  had  a  large  place  in  the  world,  and  that  the 
human  body  and  the  so-called  animal  part  of  man's 
nature  are  its  product,  some  thought  and  still  think 
to  save  morality  and  religion  by  exempting  the  con- 
science and  the  soul  from  the  general  process  and 
ascribing  them  to  the  immediate  creative  activity  of 
God.  But  others  have  found  it  all  the  grander  to  be- 
lieve that  the  whole  man  has  risen  from  below  and 
has  attained  control  of  the  very  nature  which  gave 
him  birth.     In  fact  the  tendency  even  among  the- 


176        THE  RISE  OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ologians  IS  more  and  more  to  disregard  the  limits 
which  were  at  first  generally  set  to  the  process  and 
to  recognize  it  as  universal  in  its  scope. 

Again,  evolution  was  bitterly  opposed  by  many  re- 
ligious men  because  it  seemed  to  make  divine  creation 
unnecessary  and  hence  to  imperil  theistic  belief.  Even 
scientists  were  in  many  cases  prejudiced  against  it 
by  this  fear,  and  its  general  acceptance  was  rendered 
much  more  difficult.  But  it  was  soon  realized  that 
the  idea  of  evolution  is  entirely  compatible  with  the- 
ism. It  detracted  in  no  way  from  the  greatness  of 
God's  work  to  suppose  that  he  had  created  the  germs 
from  which  all  existing  forms  o'f  life  had  subsequently 
developed  in  accordance  with  his  eternal  plan.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  even  St.  Augustine  had  thus  pic- 
tured God's  activity,  and  there  was  no  reason  why 
the  most  orthodox  should  not  so  interpret  it.  As  a 
consequence,  although  opposition  long  continued  in 
conservative  circles,  the  new  theory  being  regarded 
by  many  as  inconsistent  with  the  Biblical  account  of 
the  creation  of  animals  and  particularly  of  man,  it 
gradually  made  its  way  among  theologians  in  all  parts 
of  the  world.  The  scriptural  narrative  was  then 
either  reinterpreted  to  agree  with  the  new  hypothesis 
or  was  disregarded  altogether. 

Many  thought  to  save  the  credit  of  the  early  chap- 
ters of  Genesis  by  understanding  the  six  days  as  ages 
of  indefinite  duration;  or  by  substituting  gradual  for 
instantaneous  creation,  or  the  production  of  the  origi- 
nal germ  of  life  for  the  immediate  creation  of  inde- 
pendent species.     Others  abandoned  the  attempt  to 


EVOLUTION  177 

harmonize  Scripture  and  science,  and  it  became  in- 
creasingly common  to  think  of  the  creation  narrative 
as  a  poem  or  allegory  without  scientific  significance, 
or  to  regard  it  as  a  mere  piece  of  primitive  specula- 
tion concerning  the  origin  of  the  world  such  as  was 
common  among  the  ancients.  The  discovery  of  simi- 
lar traditions  in  the  literatures  of  other  Oriental  peo- 
ples has  strengthened  the  latter  idea,  and  there  are 
probably  few  Protestant  theologians  to-day  who  treat 
the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  as  sober  history. 

And  not  simply  the  interpretation  of  the  Genesis 
stories  but  the  general  view  of  the  Bible  has  been  pro- 
foundly affected  by  evolution.  The  old  notion  of  it 
as  an  immediate  revelation  from  God,  equally  authori- 
tative in  all  its  parts,  has  widely  given  way  to  the 
recognition  of  it  as  a  product  of  natural  evolution. 
Scholars  now  trace  the  development  of  the  religious 
ideas  contained  in  it,  and  show  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  have  arisen  and  the  influences  by 
which  they  have  been  determined.  The  history  of  the 
Bible  itself  is  studied  like  that  of  any  other  litera- 
ture, and  an  understanding  of  it  is  sought  by  the  use 
of  the  same  methods  as  are  employed  elsewhere.  The 
effect  of  all  this  upon  the  general  doctrine  of  Biblical 
authority  has  of  course  been  very  great  and  will  be 
referred  to  again  in  a  later  chapter. 

Evolution  has  also  promoted  a  revised  estimate 
of  the  ethnic  religions.  In  fact  it  has  transformed 
our  views  of  religious  history  as  a  whole.  The  old 
rationalistic  notion  of  an  original  natural  religion 
everywhere  the  same,  from  which  men  afterward  de- 


178         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

dined — a  notion  already  attacked  by  Hume  in  the 
eighteenth  century — has  been  finally  and  forever  aban- 
doned. Similarly  the  belief  in  a  primitive  divine 
revelation  containing  the  eternal  principles  of  reli- 
gion and  morality — a.  revelation  of  which  the  old  the- 
ologians made  so  much — has  been  completely  under- 
mined. Now  it  is  recognized  that  religion,  like 
everything  else,  has  developed  from  small  beginnings, 
that  fetichism  and  polytheism  are  older  than  monothe- 
ism, and  that  the  latter  has  been  due  to  the  play  and 
interplay  of  many  and  diverse  forces.  Here  as  every- 
where else  evolution  leads  men  to  look  for  perfection 
not  in  the  past  but  in  the  future,  and  to  measure  the 
worth  of  existing  principles  and  forms  not  by  their 
agreement  with  the  forms  and  principles  of  an  earlier 
day,  but  by  their  fitness  to  promote  the  religious  and 
moral  progress  of  the  race. 

The  theory  of  evolution,  particularly  in  the  forms 
given  it  by  Darwin  and  other  modern  biologists,  has 
also  destroyed  the  force  of  the  traditional  theistic 
argument  from  design  which  urged  the  countless 
adaptations  of  organ  to  environment  as  proofs  of  a 
creative  intelligence.  Many  theologians,  however, 
find  the  evidence  of  design  in  a  larger  sense  stronger, 
than  ever  before.  In  the  general  process  of  evolu- 
tion from  lower  to  ever  higher  stages  of  existence 
they  see  the  grandest  possible  manifestation  of  divine 
wisdom.  To  them  the  very  idea  of  evolution  sug- 
gests 

"One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-oflf  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves.** 


EVOLUTION  179 

At  this  point  theistic  and  atheistic  or  agnostic  evo- 
lutionists as  a  rule  part  company.  The  former  regard 
evolution  as  merely  the  way  in  which  God  works  in 
producing  all  that  is  and  is  to  come.  They  read  the 
whole  process  as  purposive,  and  while  reco^izing  the 
mechanical  nature  of  the  agencies  employed,  they  be- 
lieve that  its  direction  and  goal  are  divinely  planned. 
The  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  regard  the  whole  thing 
as  fortuitous.  The  end  was  not  preconceived,  nor 
the  development  foreseen.  There  has  been  on  the 
whole  progress  rather  than  degeneration,  but  this  is 
the  natural  result  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and 
involves  neither  beneficence  nor  wisdom. 

Of  course  mere  science  cannot  resolve  a  question 
like  this.  The  decision  between  the  two  alternatives 
belongs  wholly  to  faith.  Science  may  discover  natu- 
ral causes  adequate  to  account  for  all  observed  phe- 
nomena, but  the  believer,  if  he  will,  may  interpret 
them  theistically  and  no  scientist  can  say  him  nay. 
Some  who  thus  interpret  the  evolutionary  process  find 
their  warrant  for  it  in  the  process  itself.  But  probably 
far  more  believe  in  God  on  other  grounds  altogether, 
and  read  the  process  theistically  not  because  it  con- 
tains independent  evidence  of  divine  activity,  but 
because  they  cannot  exclude  any  part  of  the  universe 
from  the  control  of  the  God  in  whom  they  believe. 
Though  they  cannot  prove  God  from  evolution  they 
can  and  do  interpret  evolution  in  the  light  of  God. 
Where  this  is  the  case  the  belief  in  evolution  may  af- 
fect to  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  conception  of  God 
but  it  cannot  destroy  the  conviction  that  he  is. 


l8o         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

One  notable  effect  of  it  has  been  to  promote  the 
doctrine  of  divine  immanence,  of  which  I  shall  speak 
more  particularly  in  the  next  chapter.  With  the  old 
static  idea  of  the  universe  a  transcendent  God,  the 
maker  of  the  world  machine,  himself  entirely  above 
and  apart  from  it,  was  almost  a  necessity.  But  the 
new  idea  of  the  world  as  in  process  of  evolution, 
through  the  play  of  forces  resident  within  it,  makes 
possible  a  different  conception  of  God's  relation  to  it. 
In  Hume's  Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion  it 
was  suggested  that  God  may  be  the  soul  of  the  world, 
the  living  principle  which  embodies  itself  in  the  forms 
of  external  nature.  The  suggestion  was  not  meant 
seriously,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  as  an  evidence  that 
Hume  had  "felt  the  influence  of  the  changing  con- 
ception of  the  universe.  It  was  simply  an  illustration 
drawn  from  ancient  mythology  with  the  purpose  of 
weakening  the  common  argument  from  effect  to  cause 
by  indicating  that  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse is  not  the  only  possible  one.  But  the  illustra- 
tion suggests  the  possible  effect  upon  one's  idea  of  God 
of  viewing  the  world  as  an  organism  rather  than  a  ma- 
chine. It  is  natural  to  look  for  God,  if  one  looks  for 
him  at  all,  rather  within  than  without;  to  see  in  him 
the  vital  principle  instead  of  the  maker  and  ruler.  And 
this  has  actually  been  the  almost  universal  conse- 
quence. With  the  increasing  prevalence  of  the  idea 
of  the  world  as  an  organism,  ever  growing  and  de- 
veloping through  the  constant  play  of  inherent  forces, 
has  steadily  grown  the  idea  of  immanence  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  old  notion  of  transcendence.    To  quote 


EVOLUTION 


i8i 


from  Lyman  Abbott's  Theology  of  an  Evolutionist 
(1898)  :  "I  believe  that  the  theology  of  the  future 
.  .  .  .  will  affirm  that  this  Infinite  and  Eternal  En- 
ergy is  itself  intelligent  and  beneficent — an  Infinitely 
wise  and  holy  spirit  dwelling  within  the  universe  and 
shaping  it  from  within,  much  as  the  human  spirit 
dwells  within  the  human  body  and  forms  and  controls 
it  from  within.  Scientifically  this  is  the  affirmation 
that  God  is  an  Immanent  God.  'Resident  forces'  and 
'Divine  Immanence'  are  different  forms  of  the  same 
statement."  ^  And  again  from  Aubrey  Moore's  es- 
say on  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God  in  the  volume 
entitled  Lux  Mundi,  published  in  1889: 

"The  one  absolutely  impossible  conception  of  God 
in  the  present  day  is  that  which  represents  him  as 
an  occasional  visitor.  Science  had  pushed  the  Deists' 
God  farther  and  farther  away,  and  at  the  moment 
when  it  seemed  as  if  he  would  be  thrust  out  altogether, 
Darwinism  appeared  and  under  the  guise  of  a  foe  did 
the  work  of  a  friend.  It  has  conferred  upon  philoso- 
phy and  religion  an  inestimable  benefit  by  showing  us 
that  we  must  choose  between  two  alternatives.  Either 
God  is  everywhere  present  in  nature,  or  he  is  no- 
where. He  cannot  be  here  and  not  there.  He  cannot 
delegate  his  powers  to  demigods,  called  'second 
causes.'  In  nature  everything  must  be  his  work,  or 
nothing.  We  must  frankly  return  to  the  Christian 
view  of  direct  divine  agency,  the  immanence  of  divine 
power  in  nature  from  end  to  end,  the  belief  in  a  God 
in  whom  not  only  we  but  all  things  have  their  being, 

*  P.  13. 


l82         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

or  we  must  banish  him  altogether.  It  seems  as  if  in 
the  providence  of  God  the  mission  of  modern  science 
was  to  bring  home  to  our  un-metaphysical  ways  of 
thinking  the  great  truth  of  the  divine  immanence  in 
creation,  which  is  not  less  essential  to  the  Christian 
idea  of  God  than  to  a  philosophical  view  of  nature."  ^ 
It  is  true  that  the  theory  of  evolution  has  been 
widely  regarded  as  atheistical  in  its  tendency  and  as 
involving  the  complete  banishment  of  God  from  the 
world.  And  it  is  doubtless  a  fact  that  upon  many  it 
has  had  just  this  effect.  But  that  is  because  such  per- 
sons are  in  the  grip  of  the  old  idea  of  God  as  a  tran- 
scendent being,  the  only  evidences  for  whose  existence 
are  unusual  and  so-called  miraculous  events.  The  idea 
of  evolution,  of  course,  undermines  that  idea  of  God. 
But  evolution  is  atheistic  in  its  tendency  only  in  so 
far  as  it  is  supposed  that  God  must  act  in  such  ways 
or  not  at  all.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  it  has  had 
the  effect  of  breaking  down  the  old  conception  of 
transcendence,  it  has  widely  resulted  in  the  substi- 
tution of  divine  immanence,  and  hence  has  done  as 
much  to  promote  as  to  weaken  faith  in  God. 

Among  other  traditional  ideas  that  have  been  af- 
fected by  the  conception  of  evolution  is  that  of  the 
original  perfection  and  subsequent  fall  of  man.  It  is 
true  that  evolution  is  compatible  with  a  doctrine  of 
original  sin,  and  even  lends  support  to  such  a  doctrine, 
for  the  animal  nature  inherited  from  the  brutes  neces- 
sarily carries  with  it  impulses  and  lusts  which  make 
man's  intellectual  and  spiritual  development  difficult 
*  P.  82. 


EVOLUTION  183 

and  must  be  overcome  or  subordinated  if  he  is  to  re- 
alize his  higher  destiny.  It  is  true  also  that  evolution 
is  entirely  compatible  with  the  notion  of  an  original 
state  of  innocence,  or  moral  unconsciousness,  ante- 
dating the  emergence  of  conscience  and  the  sense  of 
sin.  But  all  this  is  very  different  from  the  theological 
doctrine,  that  man  was  created  holy  and  in  com- 
munion with  God,  and  afterward  fell  from  his  high 
estate  by  an  act  of  disobedience,  thereby  bringing  the 
whole  human  race  into  the  bondage  of  sin  and  guilt. 
In  fact,  where  evolution  is  accepted,  the  tendency  is  to 
put  human  perfection  into  the  future  instead  of  the 
past;  to  look  forward  rather  than  backward  for  the 
golden  age ;  to  believe  that  man  has  risen  from  lower, 
not  fallen  from  higher  things;  and  that  redemption 
for  the  race  consists  not  in  restoration  to  a  primitive 
garden  of  Eden  from  which  it  was  once  banished, 
but  in  the  ultimate  realization  of  a  kingdom  of  God 
possible  only  after  long  ages  of  intellectual,  moral, 
and  spiritual  growth. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  evolution  has  pro- 
moted the  substitution  of  natural  for  legal  categories 
throughout  theology.  Death  is  no  longer  thought 
of  as  a  punishment  for  sin,  but  as  the  necessary  con- 
dition of  progress.  Life  is  pictured  as  an  education 
rather  than  a  probation,  and  future  blessedness  as  an 
attainment  rather  than  a  reward.  The  whole  notion 
of  man's  relation  to  God  and  of  God's  treatment  of 
man  is  thus  transformed,  and  large  modifications  in 
the  old  conceptions  of  salvation,  redemption,  and 
atonement  necessarily  result. 


184        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

I  have  spoken  of  certain  traditional  doctrines  which 
have  been  modified  by  the  idea  of  evolution,  but  of 
still  greater  importance  is  its  influence  in  changing 
the  general  attitude  of  religious  men  and  the  general 
atmosphere  which  they  breathe.  For  one  thing  it  has 
tended  to  break  down  the  sharp  contrasts  of  the  old 
theology.  Sin  and  righteousness,  flesh  and  spirit,  the 
redeemed  and  the  natural  man  are  no  longer  set  over 
against  each  other  in  the  old  absolute  and  exclusive 
way.  Sin  may  be  due  simply  to  imperfect  develop- 
ment, racial  as  well  as  individual.  Man  is  a  product 
of  evolution  both  in  flesh  and  spirit,  and  the  one  as 
well  as  the  other  bears  always  the  traces  of  its  an- 
cestry. The  redeemed  man  is  still  the  natural  man, 
with  certain  common  human  impulses  heightened,  or 
with  common  human  affections  turned  in  a  particular 
direction.  Sharp  divisions,  such  as  the  old  scholasti- 
cism, with  its  static  philosophy,  particularly  delighted 
in,  are  no  longer  tolerated.  All  is  in  process  of  growth 
and  change.  Everything  shades  into  everything  else, 
and  the  fixed  classifications  of  other  days  have  had 
to  be  everywhere  abandoned.  Religion  is  no  longer 
segregated  from  the  rest  of  life  and  given  a  unique 
supernatural  origin.  Religious  inspiration  is  no  longer 
put  wholly  in  a  class  by  itself,  but  is  seen  to  be  of 
like  nature  with  the  inspiration  of  the  artist  and  the 
poet.  In  fact,  the  habit  of  looking  at  all  things  as 
the  fruit  of  a  gradual  growth  instead  of  an  immediate 
creation  has  invaded  the  religious  realm,  and  religion 
itself,  the  Bible,  religious  institutions,  the  individual 
religious  experience  and  the  religious  experience  of 


EVOLUTION  185 

communities  and  races  are  all  viewed  as  natural 
products,  subject  to  the  general  laws  of  growth,  and 
to  be  understood  like  all  else  in  the  light  of  their  or- 
igin and  history. 

One  of  the  most  important  consequences  of  this 
recognition  of  universal  growth  and  change  has  been 
the  substitution  of  relativity  for  absoluteness  in  all 
departments  of  thought.  The  world  is  constantly  de- 
veloping and  the  end  is  not  yet.  Finality  has  not  been 
reached  in  any  line.  There  is  no  final  and  infallible 
authority  in  religion  and  ethics  any  more  than  in 
science  and  politics.  There  is  no  experience  which 
may  not  be  transcended;  no  principles  of  reason 
which  may  not  be  outgrown;  no  code  which  may  not 
prove  too  straitened  for  the  enlarging  life  of  future 
ages.  The  satisfied  assurance  of  dogmatist  and  ra- 
tionalist is  no  longer  ours.  We  realize  that  neither 
authority  nor  reason  has  said  the  last  word.  We  are 
far  more  modest  in  some  ways  than  our  ancestors, 
for,  highly  as  we  value  and  loudly  as  we  boast  of  the 
discoveries  and  attainments  of  the  age  in  which  we 
live,  we  yet  expect  still  larger  things  to  come  in  fu- 
ture days.  We  expect  our  children  to  look  back,  per- 
haps with  tolerant  amusement,  at  much  that  we  have 
held  most  dear,  or  have  most  plumed  ourselves  upon. 
We  not  only  expect  it  but  we  rejoice  in  it,  for  we  no 
longer  think  that  we  are  in  possession  of  absolute 
truth  and  final  wisdom.  We  count  confidently  upon 
their  knowing  and  doing  more  and  better  than  we 
have  known  and  done.  For  this  belief  in  evolution 
is  no  mere  conviction  that  change,  not  fixity,  is  the 


l86         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

rule  of  existence.  It  does  not  substitute  a  new  chaos 
for  the  old  cosmos.  It  assumes  not  a  meaningless 
flux  of  advancing  and  receding  forces,  but  progress, 
in  some  degree  at  least,  definite  and  constant. 

The  attitude  of  the  evolutionist  therefore,  at  any 
rate  if  he  be  a  theist,  is  one  of  hope  and  confidence, 
not  despair.  Though  the  old  fixed  standards  are  gone, 
and  many  of  the  old  landmarks  have  disappeared,  the 
world  is  advancing.  Struggle  means  attainment,  and 
out  of  the  travails  of  the  present  as  of  the  past  will 
be  born  a  nobler  future.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
modern  effort  for  social  improvement  and  for  the 
uplifting  of  the  lower  classes,  which  is  so  marked 
a  feature  of  the  life  of  to-day,  has  been  greatly  pro- 
moted by  this  very  belief  in  evolution,  which  has  sub- 
stituted for  the  old  notion  that  all  must  remain  as  it 
is  until  the  final  catastrophe,  confidence  in  the  possi- 
bility of  the  indefinite  betterment  of  the  conditions  of 
life  as  well  as  of  life  itself. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  multiply  further  the  evidences 
of  the  effect  of  evolution  upon  modern  religious 
thought.  I  shall  have  to  return  to  the  subject  more 
than  once  in  the  chapters  which  follow.  No  concep- 
tion has  done  more  to  modify  our  way  of  looking  at 
things  religious,  and  no  department  either  of  the- 
ology or  of  the  practical  religious  life  has  been  ex- 
empt from  its  influence. 


CHAPTER   X 

DIVINE  IMMANENCE 

Christianity  inherited  from  Judaism  belief  in  a 
personal  God,  the  creator  and  ruler  of  the  world. 
Under  the  influence  of  philosophy,  particularly  of  the 
later  Platonism,  this  was  often  combined  by  theo- 
logians with  the  idea  of  Gk)d  as  infinite  substance,  and 
now  and  then  the  result  was  a  pantheistic  identification 
of  God  with  the  universe.  But  as  a  rule  the  two  were 
sharply  distinguished.  Indeed  the  distinction  between 
God  on  the  one  hand  and  the  world  of  nature  and 
man  on  the  other,  has  always  been  a  marked  charac- 
teristic of  common  Christian  thought.  Frequently  the 
distinction  was  carried  to  the  length  of  a  metaphysical 
dualism,  the  nature  of  God  being  represented  as  wholly 
unlike  the  nature  of  men  and  things.  Sometimes  it 
was  without  metaphysical  implications  and  meant  only 
that  God  is  a  person  separate  from  and  independent 
of  the  creation. 

When  nominalism  became  prevalent  in  the  late  Mid- 
dle Ages,  the  natural  tendency  was  to  interpret  God 
in  strictly  personal  terms  and  to  conceive  of  him  as 
an  individual  being  as  truly  as  men  and  things  are 
individual  beings.    This  was  the  common  idea  of  God 

187 


1 88         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

in  the  period  when  the  modern  development  of  physi- 
cal science  began.  He  was  thought  of  as  the  creator 
and  ruler  of  the  world,  a  God  wholly  outside  the  uni- 
verse, to  whom  it  owed  its  existence,  and  by  whom  it 
was  controlled.  This  being  the  case,  the  almost  in- 
evitable effect  of  science  was  to  undermine  faith  in 
God.  As  ever  new  forces  were  discovered  in  nature, 
and  phenomenon  after  phenomenon  formerly  traced 
to  divine  activity  was  given  a  natural  explanation, 
there  seemed  less  and  less  place  left  for  God  and  less 
and  less  reason  to  believe  in  him.  Unless  a  revolution 
occurred  in  the  prevalent  idea  of  God  and  new  ways 
of  looking  at  him  and  new  grounds  for  believing  in 
him  were  found,  the  growing  scepticism  of  the  age 
must  in  course  of  time  become  universal.  That  it 
did  not  was  due  in  no  small  part  to  the  conception  of 
divine  immanence  which  has  done  much  to  make  con- 
tinued faith  in  God  possible  to  intelligent  men  of  mod- 
ern times. 

The  conception  is  not  new.  It  existed  both  in  the 
Oriental  and  in  the  Greek  world  before  Christianity 
appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  in  almost  every  age  of 
Christian  history  it  has  had  its  more  or  less  con- 
sistent exponents.  In  the  period  of  the  renaissance, 
particularly,  it  came  to  frequent  and  striking  expres- 
sion, as  for  instance  in  the  system  of  Giordano  Bruno, 
who  drew  from  the  recently  published  thesis  of  Co- 
pernicus, that  the  earth  is  not  the  center  of  the  uni- 
verse, the  conclusion  that  the  universe  has  no  center, 
that  it  is  infinite  as  God  is  infinite,  and  that  it  is  not 
outside  of  or  apart  from  him,  but  that  God  is  himself 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  189 

its  soul,  its  indwelling  life  principle,  which  unites  all 
its  changing  phenomena  into  one  harmonious  inter- 
related and  interdependent  whole.  Even  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  when  the  prevailing  tendency  was  most 
opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence,  we  find 
traces  of  it  here  and  there,  but  only  in  the  nineteenth 
did  it  become  widely  dominant  in  Christian  thought, 
so  widely  dominant  that  it  has  often  been  called  the 
characteristic  religious  doctrine  of  that  century.^ 

Its  prevalence  was  due  in  part  to  reaction  against 
the  extreme  notions  of  divine  transcendence  which 
were  so  widely  current  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
this  was  only  one  phase  of  a  general  reaction  against 
the  dominant  tendencies  of  the  age  which  made  itself 
felt  in  many  quarters  and  resulted  in  the  nineteenth 
century  in  a  complete  change  of  atmosphere.  The 
reaction  is  seen  in  men  as  unlike  in  interest  and  ideals 
as  Wesley  in  England,  Rousseau  in  France,  and  Les- 
sing  in  Germany.  In  spite  of  their  differences  they 
were  at  one  in  their  impatience  with  much  that  the 
eighteenth  century  held  most  dear.  For  the  rational- 
ism of  the  age  Wesley  substituted  faith  and  feeling; 
in  opposition  to  its  barren  intellectualism  and  its 
boasted  enlightenment  Rousseau  preached  sentimen- 
talism,  love  of  nature  instead  of  civilization,  and 
contempt  for  all  the  amenities  of  society  and  attain- 
ments of  human  progress;  while  Lessing*s  breadth  of 

^  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  history  of  the  doctrine  the  reader 
may  be  referred  to  the  author's  article  on  Immanence  in  Hast- 
ings' Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  parts  of  which  are 
reproduced  in  the  present  chapter. 


190        THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

vision  and  sympathy  with  other  peoples  and  ages  en- 
abled him  to  transcend  the  limitations  of  the  cen- 
tury at  a  number  of  points,  to  correct  many  of  its 
established  judgments,  and,  rationalist  though  he  was, 
to  perceive  the  inadequacy  of  rationalism  and  the 
need  of  deepening  and  enriching  the  existing  appre- 
ciation of  reality,  both  past  and  present,  both  human 
and  divine. 

Lessing  is  of  particular  interest  to  us  in  this  con- 
nection because  of  his  avowed  liking  for  the  great 
Jewish  philosopher  Spinoza.  To  the  dominant  spirit 
of  the  age,  with  its  individualism  and  love  of  liberty, 
the  monism  and  determinism  of  Spinoza  were  wholly 
uncongenial,  and  for  more  than  a  century  after  his 
death  his  philosophy  was  a  despised  and  hated  thing. 
Lessing  was  very  apt  to  feel  attracted  by  anyone  whom 
contemporary  opinion  denounced,  and  in  a  number  of 
cases  he  rescued  from  oblivion  or  obloquy  historic 
figures  whom  the  world  had  agreed  to  forget  or  con- 
demn. It  was  perhaps  the  same  impulse  which  first 
led  him  to  turn  his  attention  to  Spinoza.  At  any  rate, 
he  found  in  his  monism  and  determinism  a  welcome 
escape  from  the  rationalistic  philosophy  of  the  day 
which  he  had  himself  long  shared  and  of  whose  super- 
ficiality he  had  become  convinced.  In  a  conversation 
with  Jacobi  shortly  before  his  death  he  declared  that 
if  he  were  to  call  himself  after  the  name  of  any  mas- 
ter he  would  prefer  Spinoza.  When  Jacobi  pub- 
lished an  account  of  the  conversation  it  caused  no  little 
excitement  and  called  forth  a  vigorous  protest  from 
Lessing's  old  friend  and  co-worker,  Mendelssohn,  who 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IQI 

was  unable  to  believe  that  he  had  been  correctly  re- 
ported. But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Jacobi  under- 
stood him  aright,  and  the  incident  was  typical  of 
what  might  easily  happen,  wherever  the  spirit  of  re- 
action against  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  age  made 
itself  felt. 

Of  still  greater  significance  was  the  attitude  of  Her- 
der, who,  in  1787,  published  a  little  book  entitled 
Gott,  in  which  he  glorified  Spinoza  and  presented 
his  system  in  such  a  form  as  to  appeal  strongly  to 
many  of  his  contemporaries.  Reading  him  in  the 
light  of  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz,  who  substituted 
force  for  substance  and  thus  broke  down  the  old 
dualism  of  thought  and  extension,  he  was  able  to 
preserve  the  monism  of  Spinoza's  system  without  sac- 
rificing spiritual  idealism  or  the  reality  of  human  in- 
dividuality.^ The  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  con- 
tained in  this  little  book  is  one  of  the  most  intelligent 
as  well  as  purest  and  loftiest  to  be  found  in  modern 
literature.  The  chief  significance  of  Herder's  book 
lay  in  the  fact  that  he  expressed  his  sympathy  with 
Spinoza,  as  Lessing  had  done,  and  commended  him  to 
the  favorable  consideration  of  his  contemporaries. 
His  commendation  had  all  the  more  weight  because 
his  interpretation  was  such  as  to  bring  the  system  of 
the  great  Jewish  sage  into  close  accord  with  the  rap- 
idly growing  romanticism  of  the  age. 

It  was  in  part  under  the  influence  of  Herder  that 
the  poet  Goethe  was  attracted  to  Spinoza  and  soon 
became  an  enthusiastic  disciple. 
*  See  my  article  in  the  Hihhert  Journal  for  July,  1905. 


192         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Spinoza's  influence  was  felt  also  by  the  great  Ger- 
man theologian  Schleiermacher  who,  in  his  Discourses 
on  Religion,  paid  him  the  following  striking  tribute 
which  in  that  day  was  of  great  significance :  "Rever- 
ently offer  with  me  a  lock  of  hair  to  the  manes  of  the 
holy  and  despised  Spinoza!  The  lofty  world-spirit 
permeated  him;  the  unending  was  his  beginning  and 
end;  the  universe  his  only  and  everlasting  love.  In 
holy  innocence  and  deep  humility  he  saw  himself 
reflected  in  the  world  of  eternity  and  saw  also  how 
he  was  its  most  lovely  mirror.  Full  of  religion  he  was 
and  full  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Therefore  he  stands 
there  alone  and  unapproached,  master  in  his  art,  but 
raised  above  the  profane  rabble,  without  disciples  and 
without  citizenship."  ^ 

Schleiermacher's  conception  of  divine  immanence 
appears  clearly  enough  from  the  passages  already 
quoted  in  Chapter  V.,  to  which  the  following  may  be 
added :  "The  usual  conception  of  God  as  a  single  being 
outside  of  the  world  and  behind  the  world  is  not  the 
beginning  and  end  of  religion,  but  only  a  way  of  ex- 
pressing it  which  is  seldom  entirely  pure  and  never 
adequate."  ^  "How  could  any  one  say  that  I  have 
depicted  a  religion  without  God?  For  I  have  set 
forth  nothing  but  the  immediate  and  original  ex- 
istence of  God  in  and  through  feeling.  Or  is  not  God 
the  one  and  highest  unity?  Is  it  not  God  alone  before 
whom  and  in  whom  all  individuality  vanishes  ?  And 
*P.  112. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  194. 


DIVINE    IMMANENCE  193 

if  you  view  the  world  as  a  whole  and  a  universe 
could  you  do  it  otherwise  than  in  God  ?"  ^ 

Spinoza's  influence  is  seen  both  in  Schleiermacher's 
interpretation  of  nature  and  man  as  mere  differentia- 
tions or  manifestations  of  the  one  infinite  being,  and 
in  his  insistence  that  separateness  and  independence 
are  an  evil  and  that  the  only  true  blessedness  con- 
sists in  losing  one's  individuality  in  God,  the  all.  This 
led  him  to  think  contemptuously  of  the  common  doc- 
trine of  immortality  which  provides  for  the  lasting 
preservation  of  a  man's  separate  personality  and  is 
thus  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing. 

Spinoza's  influence  was  also  felt  both  by  Fichte 
and  Schelling,  as  seen  in  an  earlier  chapter.  The 
climax  came  with  Hegel,  to  whom  the  life  of  the 
universe,  both  of  nature  and  of  man,  was  but  the 
unfolding  of  the  self -consciousness  of  the  Absolute. 
Nothing  has  independent  existence  of  its  own.  In  all 
things  there  is  life  and  reality  only  because  they  are 
but  expressions  of  the  common  reality,  the  Abso- 
lute, which  alone  is  truly  real.  Thus,  in  part  at  least 
as  a  result  of  Spinoza's  teaching,  a  doctrine  of  divine 
immanence,  amounting  often  to  genuine  pantheism, 
became  dominant  in  German  thought  and  ultimately 
under  its  influence  found  a  place  in  English  and  Amer- 
ican as  well. 

Of  somewhat  similar  effect  has  been  the  influence 
of  the  romantic  movement  in  literature  and  art  which 
arose  in  the  late  eighteenth  century  and  for  long  con- 
trolled the  culture  of  the  western  world.     Roman- 

*Ibid.,  p.  184. 


194        THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

ticism  was  a  complicated  phenomenon.  In  addition 
to  the  emotionahsm,  sentimentalism,  and  subjectivity 
which  everywhere  characterized  it,  there  was  wide- 
spread emphasis  on  the  individual's  relation  to  the 
world  in  which  he  lives  and  upon  his  openness  to  its 
influences.  An  important  part  of  culture,  according 
to  the  Romanticists,  consists  in  learning  to  appreci- 
ate the  beauty  and  harmony  of  the  universe,  in  coming 
into  more  intimate  sympathy  with  it,  and  in  acquiring 
a  sensitiveness  to  all  its  impressions.  It  was  a  com- 
mon tendency  among  them  to  try  to  reproduce  the 
conditions  of  earlier  ages,  before  the  modern  spirit 
of  enlightenment  had  taken  possession  of  the  world, 
when  everyone  believed  in  immediate  intercourse  be- 
tween man  and  the  universe  about  him,  and  when  the 
fancy  had  free  play  and  was  not  yet  destroyed  by  the 
ruthless  hand  of  reason.  The  effect  upon  religion 
was  very  diverse.  Some  of  the  Romanticists  felt  the 
religious  impulse  very  strongly,  but  were  led  by  their 
hostility  to  the  dominance  of  reason,  which  they  be- 
lieved began  with  the  Reformation,  and  by  their  dis- 
taste for  the  prevalent  coldness  and  barrenness  of 
contemporary  Protestantism,  to  turn  to  Catholicism 
and  to  seek  in  it  what  they  could  not  find  in  the  newer 
faith.  The  result  was  a  great  revival  of  Catholicism 
in  Germany  and  France,  and  later  in  England,  where 
the  Oxford  movement  gave  delayed  and  somewhat 
distorted  expression  to  certain  elements  of  the  roman- 
tic spirit.  Many  of  the  Romanticists,  on  the  other 
hand,  particularly  in  Germany,  far  from  finding 
themselves  attracted  by  Catholicism,  revolted  against 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  195 

religion  altogether,  which  they  knew  only  in  its  ra- 
tionalistic form,  and  looked  down  upon  it  in  con- 
tempt. 

It  was  for  Romanticists  of  this  class  that  Schleier- 
macher  wrote  his  Discourses  upon  Religion.  The 
most  important  of  the  Discourses  was  the  second  on 
The  Nature  of  Religion.  As  already  seen,  its  general 
thesis  was  that  religion  has  its  seat  not  in  the  intel- 
lect nor  in  the  will,  but  in  the  feelings,  and  consists 
in  the  sense  of  the  universal  or  infinite.  Schleier- 
macher's  religious  sense  was  simply  a  translation  into 
other  terms  of  the  artistic  sense  of  the  Romanticists. 
What  they  called  openness  to  the  universe  he  called 
openness  to  God.  What  they  regarded  as  a  sense  of 
the  beauty  and  harmony  of  the  universe  he  made  a 
sense  of  the  divine.  And  hence  he  claimed  that  the 
highest  culture,  of  which  the  Romanticists  made  so 
much,  includes  religion,  and  that  to  be  without  the 
latter  is  to  neglect  an  important  part  of  one*s  nature 
and  to  be  content  with  a  partial  and  one-sided  develop- 
ment. -^  Religion  raises  a  man  above  his  individual  lim- 
its into  converse  with  the  infinite,  and  the  religious 
man  recognizes  in  every  thing  a  manifestation  of  the 
divine.  -The  ego,  or  spirit,  and  non-ego,  or  matter, 
are  appearances  of  the  infinite.  In  the  infinite  the 
two  exist  in  perfect  unity ;  in  the  world  they  are  sep- 
arated; but  they  become  one  again  in  every  impres- 
sion of  the  world  upon  us.  The  universal  manifests 
itself  only  through^the  individual,  and  on  the  other 
hand  the  individual  comes  to  his  true  life  only  in  the 
universal.    This  is  a  combinatiSti^f  romanticism  and 


196         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Spinozism  of  the  greatest  significance  and  represents 
an  attitude  which  has  ever  since  been  very  common 
among  religious  thinkers. 

The  general  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century 
also  revealed  the  wide  prevalence  of  the  tendency  to 
conceive  of  God  as  immanent  in  the  world  of  nature 
and  man.  Often  the  literary  conception  of  immanence, 
which  was  commonly  vague  and  indefinite  enough, 
amounted  to  a  pantheistic  identification  of  God  and 
the  universe,  more  often  it  meant  only  the  recognition 
of  God  as  the  soul  of  the  world,  or  its  indwelling  life 
principle.  There  has  always  been  much  of  the  latter 
in  poetry,  but  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  became  char- 
acteristic of  it  to  a  degree  rarely  seen  before.  Ro- 
manticism, Spinozism,  and  the  general  reaction  against 
the  alleged  superficiality  and  artificiality  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  all  had  their  part  in  producing  the 
result.  A  few  familiar  passages  may  be  quoted  by 
way  of  illustration. 

"Glory  to  thee — Father  of  earth  and  heaven! 
All  conscious  presence  of  the  universe! 
Nature's  vast  everlasting  Energy !"  * 

"To  every  form  of  being  is  assigned," 
Thus  calmly  spoke  the  venerable  Sage, 
"An  active  Principle:  howe'er  removed 
From  sense  and  observation,  it  subsists 
In  all  things,  in  all  natures;  in  the  stars 
Of  azure  heaven,  the  unenduring  clouds, 
In  flower  and  tree,  in  every  pebbly  stone 
That  paves  the  brooks,  the  stationary  rocks. 
The  moving  waters,  and  the  invisible  air. 
Whate'er  exists  hath  properties  that  spread 

*  Coleridge,  Destiny  of  Nations. 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  197 

Beyond  itself,  communicating  good, 

A  simple  blessing,  or  with  evil  mixed; 

Spirit  that  knows  no  insulated  spot, 

No  chasm,  no  solitude;   from  link  to  link 

It  circulates,  the  soul  of  all  the  worlds. 

This   is  the  freedom  of  the  universe; 

Unfolded  still  the  more,  more  visible. 

The  more  we  know ;  and  yet  is  reverenced  least. 

And  least  respected  in  the  human  mind, 

Its  most  apparent  home."  * 

"Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit  can 

meet — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet. 

God  is  law,  say  the  wise;  O  soul,  and  let  us  rejoice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet  His  voice. 

Law  is  God,  say  some :   no  God  at  all,  says  the  fool ; 

For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff  bent  in  a  pool; 

And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear  and  the  eye  of  man  cannot  see ; 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision — were  it  not  He?"' 

To  which  may  be  added  the  following  characteris- 
tic passages  from  Carlyle  and  Emerson :  "Then  saw- 
est  thou  that  this  fair  Universe,  were  it  in  the  mean- 
est province  thereof,  is  in  very  deed  the  star-domed 
City  of  God;  that  through  every  star,  through  every 
grass-blade,  and  most  through  every  Living  Soul,  the 
glory  of  a  present  God  still  beams.  But  Nature,  which 
is  the  Time-vesture  of  God,  and  reveals  Him  to  the 
wise,  hides  Him  from  the  foolish."  ^  "We  live  in 
succession,  in  division,  in  parts,  in  particles.     Mean- 

*  Wordsworth,  The  Excursion,  Book  IX. 

'Tennyson,  The  Higher  Pantheism. 

'  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus,  chapter  VIII. 


198         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

time  within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole;  the  wise 
silence ;  the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every  part  and 
^  particle  is  equally  related ;  the  eternal  One.    And  this 
:  deep  power  in  which  we  exist  and  whose  beatitude 
'  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not  only  self-sufficing  and  per- 
fect in  every  hour,  but  the  act  of  seeing  and  the  thing 
seen,  the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  the  subject  and  the 
object,  are  one.    We  see  the  world  piece  by  piece,  as 
:  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the  tree ;  but  the  whole, 
of  which  these  are  the  shining  parts,  is  the  soul."  ^ 

A  similar  attitude  toward  nature,  expressed  not  in 
poetry  but  in  sober  prose,  appears  in  the  philosophi- 
cal system  of  the  German  psychologist  Fechner,  the 
father  of  the  science  known  as  psychophysics.     Ac- 
,  cording  to  Fechner  all  nature  is  animated  by  spirit. 
/There   is   no   dead  matter;   everywhere   is   life   and 
consciousness.    This  life  manifests  itself  in  countless 
individual  souls,  in  things  as  well  as  in  men,  but  they 
are  all  only  expressions  of  the  one  infinite  life  which 
;  lies  back  of  and  beneath  them  and  unites  them  all  in 
j  one  indivisible  whole.     "The  infinite  does  not  lie  be- 
yond the  finite,  but  the  finite  is  the  content  of  the  in- 
finite." ^    "God  is  the  all  or  the  spirit  of  all.    To  the 
bodily  order  of  the  world  there  corresponds  a  spiritual 
order  which  is  mirrored  and  borne  by  the  bodily."  ^ 
"God  as  a  spirit  is  related  to  the  world  of  bodies. 
What  the  relation  of  spirit  to  body  is  we  learn  in  our- 
selves.    But  God  as  the  most  universal,  the  greatest, 

*  Emerson's  Essay  on  The  Over-Soul. 
'Fechner,  Ueber  die  Seelenfrage  (1861),  p.  227. 
'Ibid.,  p.  223. 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  199 

the  highest  spirit,  is  related  to  that  which  is  most 
universal,  greatest  and  highest  in  the  bodily  world. 
We  can  also  learn  from  ourselves  how  the  relation 
of  spirit  to  body  is  enlarged  and  heightened  as  the 
sphere  of  the  spirit  widens  and  its  grade  advances. 
The  higher  spirit  is  borne  by  a  more  highly  developed 
organism  and  as  it  grows  raises  it,  so  to  speak,  still 
higher.  Proceeding  further  in  this  direction  we  shall 
find  that  the  largest  and  highest  spirit  is  borne  by  the 
largest  and  most  highly  developed  organism,  that  is, 
the  world  itself,  not  the  inorganic,  but  the  whole  world, 
including  its  beginnings  together  with  all  the  history 
and  fortunes  of  men."  ^ 

The  influence  of  Fechner's  fanciful  speculations 
may  not  have  been  great;  he  has  had  few  if  any  fol- 
lowers in  this  matter.  But  his  system  in  spite  of  its 
phantasy  and  frequent  grotesqueness  represents  a  com- 
mon tendency  to  read  nature,  as  Schelling  did,  as 
but  the  expression  of  indwelling  or  immanent  spirit 
and  hence  represents,  though  in  an  extreme  and  often 
pagan  way,  the  common  doctrine  of  divine  immanence. 
Similar  effects  have  come  from  the  rise  and  grow- 
ing prevalence  of  the  conception  of  evolution  to  whose 
influence  in  promoting  the  doctrine  of  divine  imma- 
nence I  referred  in  the  previous  chapter.  An  addi- 
tional quotation  may  be  given  in  order  to  illustrate 
still  further  the  relation  of  the  two  ideas.  "If  by  the 
accumulation  of  irresistible  evidence  we  are  driven — 
may  not  one  say  permitted — ^to  accept  Evolution  as 
God's  method  in  creation,  it  is  a  mistaken  policy  to 

*Ibid.,  p.  ii8. 


^00         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

glory  in  what  it  cannot  account  for.  The  reason  why 
men  grudge  to  Evolution  each  of  its  fresh  claims  to 
show  how  things  have  been  made  is  the  groundless 
fear  that  if  we  discover  how  they  are  made  we  mini- 
mize their  divinity.  When  things  are  known,  that  is 
to  say,  we  conceive  them  as  natural,  on  Man's  level; 
when  they  are  unknown,  we  call  them  divine — as  if 
our  ignorance  of  a  thing  were  the  stamp  of  its  di- 
vinity. If  God  is  only  to  be  left  to  the  gaps  in  our 
knowledge,  where  shall  we  be  when  these  gaps  are 
filled  up  ?  And  if  they  are  never  to  be  filled  up,  is  God 
only  to  be  found  in  the  disorders  of  the  world?  Those 
who  yield  to  the  temptation  to  reserve  a  point  here 
and  there  for  special  divine  interposition  are  apt  to 
forget  that  this  virtually  excludes  God  from  the  rest 
of  the  process.  If  God  appears  periodically,  he  dis- 
appears periodically.  If  he  comes  upon  the  scene  at 
special  crises  he  is  absent  from  the  scene  in  the  in- 
tervals. Whether  is  all-God  or  occasional-God  the 
nobler  theory?  Positively,  the  idea  of  an  immanent 
God,  which  is  the  God  of  Evolution,  is  infinitely 
grander  than  the  occasional  wonder-worker  who  is 
the  God  of  an  old  theology.  Negatively,  the  older 
view  is  not  only  the  less  worthy,  but  it  is  discredited 
by  science."  ^ 

*  Drummond's  Ascent  of  Man  (1894),  p.  333  ff.  Compare  also 
the  following  from  The  Vestiges  of  the  Natural  History  of 
Creation:  "To  many,  at  first  sight,  it  [i.  e.  evolution]  is  apt  to 
appear  as  a  dreary  view  of  the  divine  economy  of  our  world,  as 
if  it  placed  God  at  an  immeasurable  distance  from  his  creatures, 
and  left  them  without  refuge  or  remedy  from  the  numberless 
ills  that  'flesh  is  heir  to/  and  which  no  one  can  hope  altogether 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  \20l 

Both  evolution  and  immanencgj^  indeed,  represent  the 
same  general  tendency  to  emphasize  unity,  which  i> 
a  marked  characteristic  of  modern  times.  In  the  un 
case  it  is  unity  of  process,  binding  all  existence  to- 
gether; in  the  other  it  is  unity  of  force  or  of  substance, 
making  all  things  the  expression  of  one  all-pervading^/ 
divine  energy  or  of  one  all-embracing  divine  being. 

The  effects  of  the  various  influences  that  have  been 
described  are  similar  and  yet  in  many  respects  di- 
verse. All  have  tended  to  promote  the  belief  in  di- 
vine immanence,  but  the  belief  takes  many  forms,  ^ 
according  as  one  or  another  interest  is  dominant.  God  J  * 
is  conceived,  as  has  been  seen,  as  the  soul  of  the  world, 
the  spirit  animating  all  nature;  _the  universal  force 
which  takes  the  myriad  forms  of  neat,  light,  gravita- 
tion, elecTricity  and  the  like;  the  ail-embracing  sub- 
to  escape.  But,  in  reality,  God  may  be  presumed  to  be  revealed 
to  us  in  every  one  of  the  phenomena  of  the  system,  in  the  sus- 
pension of  globes  in  space,  in  the  degradation  of  rocks  and  the 
upthrowing  of  mountains,  in  the  development  of  plants  and  ani- 
mals, in  each  movement  of  our  minds,  and  in  all  that  we  enjoy 
and  suffer,  seeing  that,  the  system  requiring  a  sustainer  as  well 
as  an  originator,  he  must  be  continually  present  in  every  part 
of  it,  albeit  he  does  not  permit  a  single  law  to  swerve  in  any 
case  from  its  appointed  course  of  operation.  Thus,  we  may  still 
feel  that  He  is  the  immediate  breather  of  our  life  and  ruler  of 
our  spirits,  that  we  may,  by  rightly  directed  thought,  come  into 
communion  with  him,  and  feel  that,  even  when  his  penal  ordi- 
nances are  enforced  upon  us,  his  hand  and  arm  are  closely  about 
us."  (Fifth  edition,  1846,  p.  406.)  The  difference  between  this 
tentative  and  guarded  utterance  and  the  emphatic  and  confident 
words  quoted  from  Drummond,  and  in  the  previous  chapter 
from  Aubrey  Moore,  illustrates  the  distance  which  religious 
thought  has  traveled  since  the  conception  of  evolution  began  to 
make  its  influence  felt. 


(j202        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

,  stance  of  which  men  and  things  are  but  differentia- 
tibrisT'the  prinapleof  unity  underlying  all  multiplicity ; 
the  infinite  consciousness  in  which  all  things  have 
tBeir  existence ;  the~indweilmg  personality  with  whom 
we^commune  when^jwe  confemplate  nature  or  look 

I  inttr-?5ur  own  souls.  The  conception  may  be  crass 
or  refined,  spiritual"  or  material,  idealistic  or  realistic, 
but  in  every  case  it  is  a  form  of  cosmical  theism, 
faith  in  a  god  of  whom  the  world  of  nature  and  of 
man  is  in  some  real  and  immediate  sense  a  manifes- 
tation or  expression.  It  is  this  that  constitutes  the 
\/,- difference  between  the  modern  idea  of  immanence  and 
.  '^  the  traditional  idea  of  omnipresence.  The  latter  starts 
T-*  <  with  the  distinction  between  God  and  the  world ;  the 

/  former  with  their  identity.  Omnipresence  asserts  only 
that  the  infinite  God  is  present  or  is  active  in  all  parts 
of  the  universe;  immanence  implies  a  much  more  in- 
timate relationship,  that  the  universe  and  God  are  in 
some  sort  truly  one.  The  dominant  interest  in  the 
former  case  is  to  magnify  God,  in  the  latter  case  the 
world;  in  the  former  to  assert  divine  control  of  the 
world,  in  the  latter  the  world's  divinity.  The  tendency 
of  the  doctrine  of  immanence  is  pantheistic,  of  the  doc- 
trine of  omnipresence  quite  the  reverse.  To  identify 
the  two  conceptions,  as  some  theologians,  in  their  de- 
sire to  avoid  the  pitfalls  of  pantheism,  are  inclined  to 
do,^  is  to  mistake  the  real  significance  of  the  modern 
tendency  which  the  word  immanence  seeks  to  express 

*  Compare,  for  instance,  Clarke's  Christian  Doctrine  of  God 
(1909),  p.  320  ff. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  20$ 

and  so  to  obscure  the  difference  between  the  new  situ- 
ation and  the  old. 

The  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence 
has  made  itself  felt  over  the  whole  range  of  Chris- 
tian thought.  A  few  examples  only  must  suffice.  It__ 
has  meant  the  bridging  of  the  old  chasm  between  n^- 
ture  and  the  ■<;np^rnatnra1.  with  the  result  that  the 
difficulties,  which  beset  so  many  thinkers  of  the  eigh- 
"~teenth  century,  have  completely  vanished.  All  nature  | 
is  instinct  with  the  divine,  and  nature  and^jhe_su2er^ 
natural  ar^  not  two  r.£alm&^ut  one.  Everything  that 
occurs  IS  a  miracle,  for  God  is  in  it :  and  yet  there  are 
no  miraclesTirrthe  sense  of  isolated  instances  of  divine  J 
power.  The  following  quotation  from  Schleiermacher 
wHl  illustratelhe  common  attitude  in  this  matter: 
**Miracle  is  only  the  religious  name  for  event.  Every 
event,  even  the  most  natural  and  common,  is  a  miracle 
if  it  lend  itself  to  a  controllingly  religious  interpreta- 
tion. To  me  all  is  miracle.  In  your  sense  of  the 
word  only  something  inexplicable  and  strange  is  a 
miracle  which  to  me  is  none.  The  more  religious  you 
were  the  more  miracles  you  would  find  everywhere. 
All  conflict  over  particular  events,  as  to  whether  they 
are  worthy  to  be  called  miracles  or  not,  impresses 
me  painfully  with  the  feeling  that  the  religious  sense 
of  the  disputants  is  very  poor  and  needy."  ^ 

Of  course  where  such  a  view  of  the  relation  of  na- 
ture and  the  supernatural  obtains,  the  old  controversy 
over  the  miraculous  ceases  to  have  any  meaning.    We 
need  no  miracles  to  prove  the  presence  and  activity  of 
^Op.  cit,  p.  177. 


THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 


God,  and  a  particular  event  is  no  less  a  miracle  because 
we  recognize  that  it  has  been  caused  by  the  play  of 
natural  forces.  All  is  natural  and  supernatural  at 
once.  We  find  God  in  the  commonest  facts  of  every- 
day life  and  not  alone  in  signs  and  wonders.  The  old 
difficulties  are  thus  banished  not  by  reading  God  out  of 
any  part  of  the  world,  but  by  reading  him  into  all  parts 
of  it.  Science  is  given  its  full  rights,  and  its  explana- 
fiofi  of  the  natural  connection  of  phenomena  is  ac- 
cepted without  demur.  But  a  new  interpretation  is 
put  upon  them  all,  not  to  the  impoverishment  of  sci- 
ence, but  to  the  enrichment  of  life.  The  belief  gives 
a  new  meaning  to  nature  which  to  the  believer  in  di- 
vine immanence  is  not  simply  the  work  of  God  but  his 
dwelling  place.  It  acquires  a  sacredness  not  hitherto 
belonging  to  it.  To  be  natural  is  not  to  be  lower  than 
the  supernatural,  of  less  worth  and  significance  than 
it.  To  be  natural  is  to  be  real;  and  to  be  real  is  to 
be  divine  and  hence  supernatural  at  once.  All  this 
falls  in  admirably  with  the  tendency,  so  general  since 
the  renaissance,  and  particularly  the  Enlightenment, 
to  magnify  the  significance  of  the  present  world  quite 
apart  from  its  relation  to  a  future  life,  and  to  recog- 
nize its  inherent  interest  and  worth. 

In  this  same  connection  may  be  noticed  the  influ- 
ence of  the  doctrine  of  immanence  upon  the  tradi- 
tional idea  of  revelation.  As  God  is  immanent  in  the 
life  of  man  divine  revelation  comes  from  within,  not 
from  without.  The  religious  man  looks  into  his  own 
experience  for  the  disclosure  of  divine  truth,  and  if  he 
also  turns  to  the  pages  of  a  sacred  book,  it  is  simply 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  205 

because  it  is  a  record  of  the  religious  experiences  of 
other  men  who  have  found  God  in  their  own  souls  and 
have  learned  from  him  there.  Similarly  it  is  common 
to  assert  that  no  special  divine  revelation  and  no  spe- 
cial agents  of  revelation  are  needed,  because  all  na- 
ture and  all  life  are  instinct  with  God,  and  the  divine 
is  everywhere  about  us,  if  we  but  knew  it.  In  the 
words  of  Mrs.  Browning, 


"Earth's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God, 
But  only  he  who  sees  takes  off  his  shoes." 


Similarly  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  has 
served  to  bridge  the  old  chasm  between  earth  an(i 
heaven.  This  world  is  no  longer  thought  of  as  an 
evil  place  from  which  we  must  escape  if  we  would  be 
with  God  and  enjoy  his  presence.  It  is  God's  world 
and  God's  dwelling  place,  and  the  believer  may  find 
him  here  as  truly  as  anywhere.  Heaven  begins  on 
earth  for  thpse  who  have  eyes  to  see  the  ever  present 
^Hivme^  It  is  not  a  place  which  we  enter  after  death 
but  a  frame  of  mind  which  we  may  share  here  and 
now.  Again  Schleiermacher's  attitude  is  typical. 
''Not  immortality  outside  of  time  and  behind  it,  or 
rather  in  time  but  only  after  the  present;  but  the  im- 
mortality which  we  can  have  immediately  and  already 
in  this  temporal  life,  and  which  is  a  problem  in  whose 
solution  we  are  always  engaged.  In  the  midst  of 
the  temporal  to  be  one  with  the  everlasting,  and  to  be 


/(^o6y    tHISrise  of  modern  religious  ideas 

eternal  every  moment,  this  is  the  immortality  of  re- 
ligion." 1 

The  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  has  also  de- 
stroyed altogether  for  those  who  share  it  the  old  no- 
tion of  man.  By  traditional  Christianity  man  was 
thought  of  as  totally  depraved  and  corrupt,  the  op- 
posite in  every  sense  of  the  divine.  To  be  human 
was  to  be  undivine,  to  be  divine  was  to  be  unhuman. 
Where  divine  immanence  is  believed  in  man  is  recog- 
niized  as  himself  divine.  His  nature  is  one  with  God's, 
not  other  than  it.  He  is  but  a  limited  being,  but  he 
is  an  expression  of  the  divine  nature  and  needs  sim- 
ply to  awake  to  that  fact.  This  means,  of  course,  a 
revolution  in  the  old  conception  of  salvation.  What 
man  requires  is  not  regeneration  in  the  old  sense,  or  a 
change  of  nature,  but  simply  an  awakening  to  what 
he  really  is.  He  needs  no  magical  or  sacramental 
grace  but  simply  the  determination,  born  of  his  recog- 

/  nition  of  his  divine  sonship,  to  live  as  a  son  of  God 

I  should. 

Perhaps  most  striking  of  all  is  the  effect  the  doc- 
trine of  divine  immanence  has  had  upon  traditional 
conceptions  of  the  person  of  Christ.  The  old  Christo- 
logical  controversies  of  the  fourth  and  following  cen- 
turies proceeded  upon  the  assumption,  which  was 
shared  by  everybody,  that  God  and  man  are  of  wholly 
diverse  natures.  If  Christ  was  a  real  man,  it  seemed 
difficult  to  suppose  him  divine.     H  divine,  it  seemed 

*0/>.  cit.,  p.  195.  Cf.  also  Frederick  Dennison  Maurice's  in- 
terpretation of  eternal  life  and  eternal  death  in  his  Theological 
Essays  (1853),  p.  427  ff. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE 


necessary  to  deny  his  humanity.  Hence  arose  adop- 
tionism  on  the  one  hand  and  docetism  on  the  other. 
The  doctrine  of  the  two  natures,  which  was  finally 
adopted  at  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  in  451,  meant  that 
the  one  person,  Jesus  Christ,  possessed  two  wholly 
distinct  and  alien  natures,  the  divine  and  the  human, 
neither  of  which  was  destroyed  or  transformed  by 
the  union.  Such  a  doctrine  was  always  in  a  state 
of  unstable  equilibrium,  and  it  is  no  wonder  it  seemed 
difficult  to  many  a  thinker.  There  was  constant  dan- 
ger that  it  would  be  resolved  into  its  constituent  ele- 
ments, and  that  Christ  would  be  pronounced  only  man 
or  only  God.  With  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine 
of  divine  immanence  the  situation  was  completely 
changed.  Divine  and  human  ceased  to  be  alien  con- 
ceptions— the  two  terms  of  a  disjunctive  proposition 
— and  were  recognized  as  truly  one.  Christ,  therefore, 
if  human,  must  be  divine  as  all  men  are.  Instead  of 
the  assertion  of  one  meaning  the  denial  of  the  other, 
the  assertion  of  either  meant  the  assertion  of  both. 
This,  of  course,  took  all  meaning  out  of  the  unitarian 
controversy,  so  far  as  that  had  to  do  with  the  deity 
of  Christ.  Where  a  thoroughgoing  doctrine  of  di- 
vine immanence  is  accepted,  the  contradiction  between 
divine  and  human,  which  alone  justifies  the  denial  of 
Christ's  deity  in  the  interest  of  his  true  humanity,  is 
done  away,  and  the  two  parties  are  at  one  in  asserting 
that  he  is  at  once  human  and  divine. 

Schleiermacher's  doctrine  of  the  person  and  work 
of  Christ  is  a  capital  illustration  of  what  I  have  been 


208        THE  RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

saying.^  According  to  him,  salvation  consists  in  vic- 
tory over  sin  through  the  consciousness  of  union  with 
the  divine.  The  man  v^ho  has  awakened  to  this  one- 
ness, and  whose  life  is  dominated  by  the  sense  of  it,  is 
a  saved  man.  Sin  becomes  unnatural  to  him,  for  it  is 
the  expression  of  a  nature  single,  separate,  and  apart. 
But  according  to  Schleiermacher,  the  consciousness  of 
oneness  with  the  divine  is  mediated  by  Jesus  Christ. 
His  significance  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  life  was  com- 
pletely dominated  by  it,  and  that  he  was  perfectly  holy 
because  perfectly  one  with  God.  He  arouses  this 
consciousness  in  us  as  we  come  into  contact  with  him 
and  feel  the  influence  of  his  life  and  personality.  We 
enter  into  vital  fellowship  with  him ;  we  share  his  con- 
sciousness of  God ;  our  lives  are  transformed,  and  we 
are  saved.  There  is  no  need  of  expiation  or  sacrifice. 
Our  only  need  is  to  have  Christ's  consciousness  of  the 
divine,  and  this  we  gain  through  fellowship  with  him. 
The  deity  of  Christ  resides  in  the  completeness  of 
his  consciousness  of  God.  In  a  true  sense  all  men 
are  divine,  for  they  are  but  manifestations  of  the 
one  common  reality  which  appears  in  nature  as  well 
as  in  humanity.  Essentially  Christ  is  no  more  divine 
than  we  are  or  than  nature  is.  But  he  knows  his 
oneness  with  God;  he  is  fully  awake  to  his  own  di- 
vinity; and  his  life  is  completely  controlled  by  his 
realization  of  it.  He  is,  therefore,  divine  in  a  sense 
which  nature  cannot  be  and  in  a  sense  which  we  are 
not  yet  but  hope  eventually  to  become.     We  are  all 

*  See  Schleiermacher's  Der  Christliche  Glauhe,  second  edition, 
§  91  ff. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  20g 

children  of  God,  and  awakened  and  inspired  by  him 
we  are  striving  to  Hve  as  such.  Thus  the  work  of 
Christ  is  that  of  revelation.  The  revelation,  how- 
ever, is  not  interpreted,  as  commonly  in  the  past,  in 
an  external  way,  but  as  the  fruit  of  personal  com- 
Ttiunion  and  vital  inner  fellowship.  And  it  is  not 
thought  of  as  the  communication  of  objective  truth 
but  as  the  disclosure  of  a  reality  of  consciousness.  Be- 
cause of  Jesus'  sense  of  God,  and  only  because  of  it, 
he  is  our  Lord  and  Master,  the  one  whom  we  adore 
and  follow,  the  one  who  saves  us  from  separateness 
and  sin  and  restores  us  to  wholeness  and  holiness. 
Our  belief  in  his  deity  is  no  longer  a  mere  matter  of 
tradition;  it  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  his  work 
in  communicating  to  us  his  oneness  with  God,  a  work 
to  which  our  own  religious  experience  bears  imme- 
diate testimony. 

It  is  evident,  in  view  of  all  that  has  been  said,  that 
the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  is  of  far-reaching 
significance  and,  where  it  is  really  made  earnest  with, 
inevitably  transforms  the  greater  part  of  the  tradi- 
tional system  of  theology.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  few 
religious  ideas  have  proved  more  revolutionary.  But 
the  conception  of  immanence  is  beset  from  the  point 
of  view  of  Christian  theism  with  serious  difficulties, 
and  the  efforts  of  modern  theologians  have  been 
largely  directed  to  their  removal.  The  tendency  of 
the  doctrine  is  undoubtedly  pantheistic.  In  the  hands 
of  many  of  its  advocates,  indeed,  it  has  been  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  thoroughgoing  pantheism.  But 
pantheism  imperils,  if  it  does  not  destroy,  the  per- 


2IO         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

sonality  of  God,  the  individuality  of  man,  and  the 
reahty  of  sin,  and  hence  seems  to  make  religion  and 
ethics  in  the  Christian  sense  alike  an  illusion.  As  a 
consequence  many  modern  theists,  while  accepting  the 
doctrine  of  divine  immanence,  have  striven  to  distin- 
guish it  from  pantheism  and  to  safeguard  the  inter- 
ests imperiled  thereby. 

Thus  it  is  claimed  that  while  God  is  immanent  in 
the  universe,  he  also  transcends  it.  All  things  are 
pervaded  by  him  but  he  is  more  than  all  of  them.  A 
strict  pantheism  identifies  God  with  the  totality  of 
men  and  things.  The  theists  referred  to  recognize 
God  as  including  this  totality,  but  as  more  and  greater 
than  it.  This  form  of  theism  has  been  called  in  dis- 
tinction from  pantheism,  panentheism  (for  instance 
by  the  German  philosopher  K.  C.  F.  Krause),  its 
formula  being  not  "all  things  are  God,"  but  "all  things 
are  in  God.'*  The  transcendence  of  God  may  in  this 
case  be  understood  either  ontologically  or  dynami- 
cally, according  as  one  reads  the  divine  nature  and 
the  universe  as  a  whole  in  terms  of  being  or  of  energy. 
If  the  latter,  transcendence  may  be  interpreted  as  the 
inexhaustibility  of  the  divine  attributes,  which  are 
manifested  in  all  the  activities  of  the  universe,  but 
are  not  impoverished  thereby.^ 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  those  who  distinguish 

*Cf.,  for  instance,  the  article  by  Dr.  James  M.  Wbiton  on 
Some  Implicates  of  Theism  in  the  American  Journal  of  Theology 
for  April,  1901,  where  it  is  said  that  "the  energy  immanent  in 
all  things  is  also  a  transcendent  energy,  consciously  originating 
and .  sustaining  all,  but  exceeding  all  that  proceeds  from  it" 
(p.  316).    n^.' 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  211 

immanence  from  pantheism  by  making  God  less  than 
the  all.  According  to  Dr.  Rashdall,  for  instance,  the 
Absolute  is  not  identical  with  God,  but  includes  God 
and  other  spirits.  "The  Absolute,  therefore,  if  we 
must  have  a  phrase  which  might  well  be  dispensed 
with,  consists  of  God  and  the  souls,  including,  of 
course,  all  that  God  and  those  souls  know  or  experi- 
ence.'*  ^ 

Again  God  is  distinguished  from  the  universe  by 
being  thought  of  as  the  permanent  and  underlying 
reality  of  which  it  is  but  the  temporary  and  passing 
manifestation.  This  conception,  which  is  at  bottom 
identical  with  that  of  Hegel,  has  been  very  common 
since  his  day.  The  following  passages  from  Theo- 
dore Parker  may  be  quoted  by  way  of  illustration: 
"God,  then,  is  universally  present  in  the  world  of 
matter.  He  is  the  substantiality  of  matter.  The  cir- 
cle of  his  being  in  space  has  an  infinite  radius.  We 
cannot  say,  Lo  here,  or  Lo  there — for  he  is  every- 
where. He  fills  all  Nature  with  his  overflowing  cur- 
rents; without  him  it  were  not.  His  Presence  gives 
it  existence;  his  Will  its  law  and  force;  his  Wisdom 
its  order;  his  Goodness  its  beauty."  "There  is  no  spot 
the  foot  of  hoary  Time  has  trod  on  but  it  is  instinct 
with  God's  activity.  He  is  the  ground  of  Nature; 
what  is  permanent  in  the  passing ;  what  is  real  in  the 
apparent."  ^ 

*  In  his  essay  on  Personality,  Human  and  Divine,  in  the  volume 
entitled  Personal  Idealism,  edited  by  Henry  Sturt  (1902),  p.  392. 

^A  Discourse  of  Matters  Pertaining  to  Religion,  Book  II, 
chapter  II. 


212         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

The  objections  to  pantheism  are  also  avoided  by- 
insistence  upon  the  personaHty  of  God.  In  this  con- 
nection the  following  words  of  Coleridge  are  worth 
quoting:  "God  (says  Dr.  Priestly)  not  only  does,  but  is 
everything.  Jupiter  est  qiwdcunque  vides.  And  thus  a 
system,  which  commenced  by  excluding  all  life  and  im- 
manent activity  from  the  visible  universe,  and  evacuat- 
ing the  natural  world  of  all  nature,  ended  by  substitut- 
ing the  Deity,  and  reducing  the  Creator  to  a  mere 
anima  mundi:  a  scheme  that  has  no  advantage  over 
Spinozism  but  its  inconsistency,  which  does  indeed 
make  it  suit  a  certain  order  of  intellects,  who,  like  the 
pleuronectce  (or  flat-fish)  in  ichthyology  which  have 
both  eyes  on  the  same  side,  never  see  but  half  of  a 
subject  at  one  time,  and  forgetting  the  one  before  they 
get  to  the  other,  are  sure  not  to  detect  any  incon- 
sistency between  them.  And  what  has  been  the  con- 
sequence? An  increasing  unwillingness  to  contem- 
plate the  Supreme  Being  in  his  personal  attributes: 
and  thence  a  distaste  to  all  the  peculiar  doctrines  of 
the  Christian  Faith,  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  and  Redemption.  .  .  .  Alas!  even  the 
sincerest  seekers  after  light  are  not  safe  from  the  con- 
tagion. Some  have  I  known,  constitutionally  religious 
— I  speak  feelingly;  for  I  speak  of  that  which  for  a 
brief  period  was  my  own  state  ^ — who  under  this  un- 

*  Compare  the  striking  remark  in  a  letter  written  by  Coleridge 
in  1803,  more  than  twenty  years  before  the  publication  of  the 
Aids  to  Reflection:  "You  were  the  first  man  from  whom  I  heard 
that  article  of  my  faith  enunciated  which  is  the  nearest  to  my 
heart, — the  pure  fountain  of  all  my  moral  and  religious  feelings 
and  comforts, — I  mean  the  absolute  Impersonality  of  the  Deity." 
{Letters,  edited  by  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge,  1895,  vol.  I,  p.  444.) 


DIVINE   IMMANENCE  2I3 

healthful  influence  have  been  so  estranged  from  the 
heavenly  Father,  the  living  God,  as  even  to  shrink 
from  the  personal  pronouns  as  applied  to  the  Deity. 
But  many  do  I  know,  and  yearly  meet  with,  in  whom 
a  false  and  sickly  taste  cooperates  with  the  prevailing 
fashion :  many,  who  find  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob  far  too  real,  too  substantial;  who  feel  it 
more  in  harmony  with  their  indefinite  sensations 

To  worship  Nature  in  the  hill  and  valley, 
Not  knowing  what  they  love : — 

and  (to  use  the  language,  but  not  the  sense  or  purpose, 
of  the  great  poet  of  our  age)  would  fain  substitute 
for  the  Jehovah  of  their  Bible 

A  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things!"* 

Herder  denied  the  divine  personality  on  the  ground 
that  the  term  is  anthropomorphic;  but  he  ascribed  in- 
telligence and  will  to  God  and  so  distinguished  his 
theism  from  pantheism  which,  so  he  claimed,  makes 
God  mere  unconscious  substance  or  blind  force. 

It  is  in  the  personality  of  God  that  many  find  the 
secret  of  his  transcendence.  As  our  personalities  are 
at  once  in  nature  and  yet  apart  from  it  and  above  it, 

^  Aids  to  Reflection,  p.  361  ff. 


214         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

SO  God,  a  personal  spirit,  is  to  be  conceived  as  "at 
once  transcending  and  immanent  in  nature."  ^  In  this 
connection  reference  may  be  made  to  the  familiar  con- 
tention of  Horace  Bushnell  that  human  personality, 
like  divine,  is  supernatural.^ 

Difficulties  in  the  notion  of  personality  as  applied  to 
an  immanent  God  have  been  felt  by  many  since  Her- 
der's day.  Personality  seems  to  involve  limitation,  a 
self  and  a  not-self,  and  hence  to  be  inapplicable  to  the 
being  who  includes  and  embraces  all  that  is.  Rash- 
dall,  for  instance,  asserts  that  "the  consciousness 
which  is  personal  distinguishes  itself  from  other  con- 
sciousnesses and  particularly  from  other  persons.  In- 
dividuality is  an  essential  element  in  our  idea  of  per- 
sonality." ^  And  hence  "Personality  is  undoubtedly 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  the  Absolute  or  Infinite 
Being."  * 

This  difficulty  is  commonly  met  by  the  assertion 
that  self -consciousness,  which  is  the  essence  of  per- 
sonality, is  primarily  positive  and  inclusive,  not  nega- 
tive and  exclusive,  and  that  consequently  it  belongs 
in  complete  measure  only  to  the  absolute  or  infinite 
being,  God.  This  was  the  contention  of  Lotze,  who 
says,  in  his  Microcosmus,  "In  the  nature  of  the  finite 
mind  as  such  is  to  be  found  the  reason  why  the  de- 
velopment of  its  personal  consciousness  can  take  place 

*IIlingworth:     Divine  Immanence  (1898),  p.  85. 
*See  his  Nature  and  the  Supernatural,  chapter  2. 

•  Op.  cit.,  p.  372. 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  392.  This  does  not  mean  that  Rashdall  denies  the 
personality  of  God,  for,  according  to  him,  as  already  remarked, 
God  is  less  than  the  Absolute,  not  identical  with  it. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  21 5 

only  through  the  influences  of  that  cosmic  whole 
which  the  finite  being  itself  is  not,  that  is  through 
stimulation  coming  from  the  Non-Ego,  not  because 
it  needs  the  contrast  with  something  alien  in  order  to 
have  self -existence,  but  because  in  this  respect,  as  in 
every  other,  it  does  not  contain  in  itself  the  conditions 
of  its  existence.  We  do  not  find  this  limitation  in  the 
being  of  the  Infinite;  hence  for  it  alone  is  there  pos- 
sible a  self-existence,  which  needs  neither  to  be  ini- 
tiated nor  to  be  continuously  developed  by  something 
not  itself,  but  which  maintains  itself  within  itself  with 
spontaneous  action  that  is  eternal  and  had  no  begin- 
ning. Perfect  personality  is  in  God  only,  to  all  finite 
minds  there  is  allotted  but  a  pale  copy  thereof;  the 
finiteness  of  the  finite  is  not  a  producing  condition  of 
this  Personality  but  a  limit  and  a  hindrance  of  its  de- 
velopment." ^  Similarly,  in  a  recent  essay  on  God  and 
the  Absolute  it  is  declared,  "So  far  is  it  from  being 
impossible  for  the  Absolute  to  be  personal,  that  it  is 
rather  true  that  nothing  else  could  be  fully  personal."  ^ 
The  author  of  the  essay  goes  on  to  say  that  only  the 
Absolute  has  the  coherence  and  comprehensiveness 
necessary  to  the  ideal  of  personality.  Human  person- 
ality is  always  growing  toward  a  goal  which  is  never 
reached.  The  sharp  antithesis  between  the  self  and 
the  not-self  tends  to  diminish  as  we  ascend  in  spirit- 

*  Book  IX,  chapter  4 ;  quoted  from  the  English  translation  by 
Hamilton  and  Jones  (1885),  vol.  II,  p.  687. 

*  W^.  H.  Moberley  in  the  volume  entitled  Foundations:  a  State- 
ment of  Christian  Belief  in  Terms  of  Modern  Thought  (1913),?. 
504. 


2l6         THE    RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ual  experience,  and  hence  it  is  not  personality  but  a 
false  conception  of  it  which  is  against  absolutism.^ 

Similarly  the  evils  of  pantheism  are  avoided  by  in- 
terpreting God  in  ethical  terms.  The  God  who  is 
resident  in  the  world  is  a  God  of  moral  ideals  and  is 
working  out  his  holy  will  through  all  the  processes 
of  nature  and  of  life.  "The  infinite  and  eternal  Power 
that  is  manifested  in  every  pulsation  of  the  universe 
is  none  other  than  the  living  God.  We  may  exhaust 
the  resources  of  metaphysics  in  debating  how  far  his 
nature  may  fitly  be  expressed  in  terms  applicable  to 
the  psychical  nature  of  man;  such  vain  attempts  will 
only  serve  to  show  how  we  are  dealing  with  a  theme 
that  must  ever  transcend  our  finite  powers  of  concep- 
tion. But  of  some  things  we  may  feel  sure.  Human- 
ity is  not  a  mere  local  incident  in  an  endless  and  aim- 
less series  of  cosmical  changes.  The  events  of  the 
universe  are  not  the  work  of  chance,  neither  are  they 
the  outcome  of  blind  necessity.  Practically,  there  is 
a  purpose  in  the  world  whereof  it  is  our  highest  duty 
to  learn  the  lesson,  however  well  or  ill  we  may  fare  in 
rendering  a  scientific  account  of  it.  When  from  the 
dawn  of  life  we  see  all  things  working  together  toward 
the  evolution  of  the  highest  spiritual  attributes  of 
Man,  we  know,  however  the  words  may  stumble  in 
which  we  try  to  say  it,  that  God  is  in  the  deepest  sense 

^In  his  Gifford  Lectures  for  191 1,  on  The  Principle  of  Indi- 
viduality and  Value,  Bosanquet  says:  "If  a  man  has  more 
power  of  comprehension  and  inclusion  so  that  less  is  outside 
him,  his  own  unity  and  individuality  is  so  far  and  for  that 
reason  not  less  but  greater"  (p.  286).  Cf.,  also  lUingworth: 
Divine  Transcendence,  p.  45  ff. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  2iy 

a  moral  Being."  ^  In  other  words,  God  must  be 
moral  because  the  ethical  is  the  highest  thing  in  the 
universe,  and  God  is  the  indwelling  force  in  all  the 
evolutionary  process  from  the  beginning  to  the  end. 
Eventuating  as  it  does  in  the  ethical  and  spiritual  the 
process  involves  the  ethical  and  spiritual  character  of 
God,  the  immanent  cause. 

One  of  the  clearest  and  baldest  statements  of  the 
method  of  procedure  which  begins  with  a  cosmical 
God,  immanent  in  the  universe,  and  goes  on  to  an 
ethical  God,  a  revival  under  new  conditions  of  the  old 
order  of  the  traditional  natural  theologies,  is  the  fol- 
lowing from  President  Schurman:  "The  fact  will 
have  to  be  recognized  sooner  or  later  that  there  is  no 
anthropic  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  The  moral 
ideal  of  man  may  throw  some  light  upon  the  moral 
character  of  God,  but  it  is  powerless  to  prove  the 
divine  existence.  .  .  .  The  true  state  of  the  case  seems 
rather  to  be  that  though  conscience  does  not  prove 
the  existence  of  one  infinite  spirit,  it  yet  obliges  us  to 
invest  it,  if  existent,  with  the  predicate  of  righteous- 
ness. If  there  be  a  God,  moral  laws  seem  best 
explained  as  expressions  of  his  nature."  ^  The  con- 
trast between  this  and  the  genuine  ethical  theism 
of  modern  times,  which  begins  with  the  ethical 
rather  than  the  cosmical,  will  appear  in  the  next 
chapter. 

*  Fiske :     The  Idea  of  God  as  Affected  by  Modern  Knowledge 
(i88s),  p.  i66  flf. 
'Belief  in  God  (1890),  p.  240. 


2l8         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Again  immanence  has  been  guarded  against  some 
of  the  defects  of  pantheism  by  emphasis  upon  the  re- 
ality of  human  individuaHty.  Already  in  the  second 
edition  o  fins '  Vo  tt,  lierder  grappled  with  the  prob- 
lem of  individuation,  and  maintained  that  divine 
immanence  does  not  destroy  the  personality  of  man 
but  only  makes  it  the  more  real  and  vivid.  And 
Schleiermacher  took  a  similar  position  in  his  Mono- 
logues which  appeared  the  year  after  his  Discourses  on 
Religion  and  dealt  with  the  subject  of  ethics.  The 
discussions  of  Professor  Royce  in  the  volume  entitled 
The  Conception  of  God  and  in  his  Gifford  Lectures  on 
The  World  and  the  Individual  are  among  the  most 
notable  of  modern  contributions  to  the  subject.  Ac- 
cording to  him,  individuality  consists  in  the  partial 
nature  of  human  consciousness  which  is  distinguished 
from  the  Absolute's  all-embracing  consciousness  by 
its  limited  and  fragmentary  character,  as  in  the 
uniqueness  of  each  human  will  which  is  an  exclusive 
expression  of  a  single  aspect  of  the  divine  will.  J^The 
self -consciousness  of  each  finite  individual  is  a  portion 
of  the  Divine  Self -Consciousness.  The  One  Will  of 
,  the  Absolute  is  a  One  that  is  essentially  and  organi- 
1  cally  composed  of  many.  These  many  forms  of  will 
I  harmonize  with  the  Whole,  just  by  being,  in  a  rela- 
'  tive  measure,  free  in  respect  one  of  another.  The 
many  forms  of  will  form  One,  because  it  is  best — is 
an  aspect  of  the  perfection  of  the  Divine  Selfhood — 
that  they  should  do  so.  The  One  Will  stands  differ- 
entiated into  many,  because  in  such  variety  of  ideals 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  2I9 

there  is  greater  significance  than  in  a  merely  dead  and 
abstract  unity."  ^ 

A  still  more  emphatic  assertion  of  human  individ- 
uality, providing  a  more  secure  place  for  freedom  and 
initiative  and  so  for  moral  responsibility  on  the  part 
of  man,  is  found  in  the  writings  of  James  Martineau, 
according  to  whom  God  is  immanent  in  nature,  but 
not  in  man.  All  natural  phenomena  are  due  to  the 
immediate  activity  of  God,  who  is  their  sole  cause, 
but  man  is  a  free  spirit,  created  such  by  God,  and 
his  actions  are  his  own,  not  God's.  He  thus  in  a  real 
sense,  though  of  course  by  divine  appointment,  tran- 
scends God,  and  constitutes  a  sphere  of  independent 
causality,  a  center  of  free  ethical  life. 

Thus  Martineau  says:  "But  the  full  security 
against  the  dissolving  mists  of  pantheism  is  first  ob- 
tained when  we  quit  the  simply  natural  field  in  which 
nothing  is  possible  but  in  linear  links  of  succession, 
and  stand  in  presence  of  the  supernatural  in  man,  to 
whom  an  alternative  is  given,  and  in  whom  is  a  real 
mind,  or  miniature  of  God,  consciously  acting  from 
a  selected  end  in  view.  Here  it  is  that  we  first  learn 
the  solemn  difference  in  ourselves  between  what  is  and 
what  might  be;  and,  carrying  the  lesson  abroad,  dis- 
cover how  faint  a  symbol  is  visible  nature  of  its  ideal 
essence  and  Divine  Cause.  Here  it  is,  that,  after  long 
detention  in  our  prison  of  facts,  the  walls  become 
transparent,  and  let  us  see  the  fields  more  than  elysian 
beyond.     The  Eternal  is  more  than  all  that  he  has 

*  The  Conception  of  God  (1897),  P-  293  ff.    Cf.  also  The  World 
and  the  Individual,  First  Series  (1900),  Lecture  X. 


220         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

done.  And  if  the  universe,  with  all  its  vastness,  is 
only  the  single  actuality  which  shapes  itself  out  of  a 
sea  of  possibilities;  if  its  laws  are  but  one  function  of 
thought  in  a  Mind  that  transcends  them  every  way; 
then,  in  being  the  indwelling  beauty  and  power  of  the 
world,  he  does  not  cease  to  be  the  living  God  above 
the  world  and  though  the  world  were  gone.  Still 
more,  if,  within  the  local  realm  of  his  administra- 
tion, there  is  an  enclosure  which  he  has  chosen  to  rail 
off  as  sacred  for  a  minor  divineness  like  his  own,  for 
a  free  and  spiritual  life,  having  play  enough  from  the 
thraldom  of  natural  laws  for  responsible  movements 
of  its  own;  then,  however  resistless  the  sweep  of  his 
power  elsewhere,  here,  at  the  threshold  of  this  shrine 
of  conflict  and  of  prayer,  he  gently  pauses  in  his  al- 
mightiness,  and  lets  only  his  love  and  righteousness 
enter  in.  Here  is  a  holy  place  reserved  for  genuine 
moral  relations  and  personal  affections,  for  infinite 
pity  and  finite  sacrifice,  for  tears  of  compunction  and 
the  embrace  of  forgiveness,  and  all  the  hidden  life  by 
which  the  soul  ascends  to  God."  ^ 

Thus  the  individuality  of  man  and  the  reality  of 
human  righteousness  and  sin  are  preserved  by  a  par- 
tial denial  of  immanence  and  its  limitation  to  only  a 
portion  of  existence,  a  significant  admission  of  the 
ethical  inadequacy  of  any  thoroughgoing  doctrine  of 
immanence. 

The  many  attempts  to  combine  immanence  with 
Christian  theism  abundantly  reveal  the  serious  dif- 
ficulties involved  in  immanence.    That  the  difficulties 

^The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  (1890),  p.  35  ff. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  221 

are  insuperable  need  not  be  asserted,  but  it  is  evident 
at  any  rate  that  two  disparate  interests,  the  cosmical 
and  the  ethical,  are  involved  in  the  combination. 
Meanwhile,  the  ethical  interest  has  had  its  own  inde- 
pendent place  quite  apart  from  the  cosmical  interest 
in  framing  modern  conceptions  of  God,  and  in  the 
next  chapter  I  desire  to  trace  its  development  and 
its  influence  upon  modern  theism. 


CHAPTER    XI 

ETHICAL     THEISM 

In  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  the  control- 
Hng  interest  is  cosmical — God's  relation  to  the  world. 
In  ethical  theism,  properly  so-called,  the  controlling 
interest  is  ethical — God's  relation  to  the  moral  ideals 
and  purposes  of  men.  The  doctrine  of  divine  im- 
manence of  course  does  not  exclude  the  ethical  in- 
terest. As  seen  in  the  previous  chapter,  many  of  its 
protagonists  insist  that  the  immanent  God  must  be 
interpreted  in  ethical  terms.  But  in  this  case  the  re- 
sult, which  is  sometimes  called  ethical  immanence,  is 
due  neither  to  the  cosmical  nor  to  the  ethical  interest 
alone  but  to  a  combination  of  the  two.  The  latter 
belong  to  disparate  realms,  and  the  theisms  to  which 
they  respectively  lead  are  not  contradictory  or  antag- 
onistic, it  is  true,  but  independent  and  incommensur- 
able. The  tendency  of  immanence,  though  it  may  not 
commonly  go  so  far,  is  to  identify  God  and  the  world. 
The  tendency  of  ethical  theism  is  to  distinguish  him 
from  the  world.  Ethical  theism  therefore  makes  in 
the  direction  of  divine  transcendence,  and  if  it  be 
associated  with  immanence  limits  the  latter  and  pre- 

222 


ETHICAL   THEISM  223 

vents  it  from  reaching  the  extreme  of  pantheism 
toward  which  it  naturally  moves. 

Ethical  theism  leads  also  to  particular  emphasis 
upon  the  personality  of  God,  and  thus  avoids  one  of 
the  chief  difficulties  that  beset  any  thoroughgoing 
doctrine  of  divine  immanence.  As  the  latter  is  in  line 
with  the  modern  philosophical  emphasis  on  the  unity 
of  all  things,  and  is  the  principal  theological  expression 
qi  that  emphasis,  ethical  theism,  in  its  controlling 
recognition  of  divine  personality,  is  in  line  with  a 
growing  philosophical  tendency  to  put  personality  into 
the  forefront  and  to  interpret  all  existence  in  its  light. 
The  two  tendencies,  as  seen  in  the  previous  chapter, 
are  not  inconsistent,  but  they  represent  widely  dif- 
ferent interests.^ 

If  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  was  the  char- 
acteristic doctrine  of  the  nineteenth  century,  ethical 
theism  also  had  its  exponents,  and  especially  in  recent 
years  has  begun  to  extend  its  influence.  The  moral 
argument  for  God,  or  the  moral  approach  to  God,  is 
very  old.  Our  moral  nature,  enabling  us  to  distinguish 
between  right  and  wrong  and  impelling  us  to  choose 
the  right  and  eschew  the  wrong,  demands,  so  it  has 
been  believed,  a  creator  who  is  himself  a  moral  being, 
as  we  are,  and  who  has  implanted  in  us  our  moral 
principles  and  our  sense  of  ought. 

With  this  age-old  argument  for  a  moral  creator 

*  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  compare  two  recent  vol- 
umes of  essays  by  two  different  groups  of  Oxford  scholars :  Per- 
sonal Idealism,  edited  by  Henry  Sturt  (1902),  and  Foundations, 
a  Statement  of  Christian  Belief  in  Terms  of  Modern  Thought, 
edited  by  B.  H.  Streeter  (1913). 


224        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Kant  broke  completely.  The  argument  from  effect  to 
cause  is  as  invalid,  according  to  him,  in  the  moral  as 
in  the  cosmical  realm.  The  more  recent  study  of  bi- 
ological ethics,  showing  the  natural  development  and 
the  social  function  of  the  moral  sense,  has  served  only 
to  supplement  and  strengthen  Kant's  negative  con- 
clusion and  to-day  there  are  probably  few  thinkers 
who  employ  the  old  argument  in  the  old  way. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  notion,  once  so  common  in 
certain  circles,  that  our  moral  principles  are  without 
support,  unless  the  will  of  God  be  assumed  to  make 
right  right,  and  wrong  wrong.  The  legalism  of  this 
old  position  is  entirely  out  of  line  with  modern  inter- 
pretations of  the  world  and  human  life,  and  it  is  now 
generally  abandoned. 

A  modification  of  this  position,  however,  is  still 
widely  prevalent  which  sees  in  the  existence  of  a  right- 
eous God  the  only  rational  ground  for  the  objectivity 
of  the  laws  of  morality.  Thus,  according  to  Rashdall, 
"What  we  mean  by  an  objective  law  is  that  the  moral 
law  is  a  part  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  things,  on  the 
level  of  the  laws  of  physical  nature,  and  it  cannot  be 
thatj  unless  we  assume  that  law  to  be  an  expression 
of  the  same  mind  in  which  physical  laws  originate. 
The  idea  of  duty,  when  analyzed,  implies  the  idea  of 
God.*'  ^  But  evolution  has  served  to  undermine  this 
position  also,  and  probably  an  increasing  number  find 
it  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory. 

Closely  connected  with  the  idea  that  God  alone  canV 
make  right  right  and  wrong  wrong,  is  the  still  more 

*  Philosophy  and  Religion  (1910),  p.  74. 


ETHICAL   THEISM  225 

V:ommon  belief  that  God  is  needed  to  supply  moral 
sanctions  strong  enough  to  compel  the  consciences  of 
men.  This  was  the  all  but  universal  position  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  classic  period  of  rationalism. 
The  true  ground  of  morality,  according  to  the  phil- 
osopher Locke,  "can  only  be  the  will  and  law  of  a 
God,  who  sees  men  in  the  dark,  has  in  his  hands  re- 
wards and  punishments,  and  power  enough  to  call  to 
account  the  proudest  offender."  ^  And  according  to 
the  theologian  Paley,  "Virtue  is  the  doing  good  to 
mankind,  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the 
sake  of  everlasting  happiness."  ^  With  this,  too,  Kant 
broke  completely.  Morality,  he  maintained,  is  self- 
vindicating,  and  needs  no  extraneous  supports.  The 
whole  notion  of  reward  and  punishment  is  destructive 
of  true  morality.  Virtue  done  for  the  sake  of  gain- 
ing happiness  or  avoiding  misery  is  no  virtue. 

Having  thus  closed  the  traditional  roads  to  God 
from  the  moral  nature  and  needs  of  men,  as  he  had 
already  closed  those  from  the  world  and  its  phe- 
nomena, Kant  recovered  God,  as  was  seen  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  by  another  road  peculiarly  his  own.  In  his 
theology,  as  well  as  in  his  epistemology,  he  felt  the 
influence  of  Hume,  but  in  the  one  as  in  the  other  he 
went  beyond  Hume's  negations  to  a  positive  and  or- 
iginal reconstruction.  We  do  not  reach  God  by  ar- 
guing back  from  the  universe  to  a  first  cause,  from 
the  multiplicity  of  phenomena  to  a  principle  of  unity, 
from  contingent  to  necessary  being.     The  iron  chain 

*  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,  Book  I,  chap.  Ill,  sect.  6. 

*  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  Book  I,  chap.  7. 


226         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

of  cause  and  effect,  which  binds  our  phenomenal  uni- 
verse together,  knows  no  God  and  has  no  place  for 
God.  God  is  not  a  phenomenon,  a  being  presented  to 
us.  God  is  an  idea,  a  belief,  which  gives  meaning  to 
our  ethical  life,  and  hence  is  a  postulate  of  our  moral 
will.  The  moral  necessity  which  leads  us  to  postulate 
God  is  not  that  we  must  account  for  the  origin  of  our 
moral  natures,  and  so  need  a  moral  creator,  or  that 
we  must  have  a  moral  law-giver,  or  standard,  or  mo- 
tive. The  law  of  our  practical  reason,  the  categori- 
cal imperative,  requires  us  to  labor  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  highest  good,  and  God  is  the  being 
whom  we  assume  in  order  to  make  the  highest  good 
realizable  and  hence  rational.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
describe  further  this  form  of  ethical  theism,  or  to 
indicate  the  modifications  it  has  undergone  at  the 
hands  of  Fichte,  Ritschl,  and  modern  pragmatists. 
Enough  has  already  been  said  in  chapter  seven,  where 
its  significance  for  the  rehabilitation  of  faith  was  un- 
der consideration.  In  the  present  chapter  I  wish  sim- 
ply to  call  attention  to  some  of  its  implications  and  to 
some  of  the  effects  it  has  had  upon  other  religious 
ideas. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  quarrel  between  such  an 
ethical  theism  and  the  most  rigorous  natural  science. 
God  may  be  entirely  undiscoverable  in  the  phenomenal 
world  of  cause  and  effect,  of  space  and  time.  The 
development  of  disbelief  in  the  supernatural,  which 
was  traced  in  chapter  three,  may  bear  its  perfect 
fruit,  and  yet  faith  in  God  may  exist  to  give  us  con- 
fidence in  our  ideals  and  to  inspire  and  quicken  our 


ETHICAL   THEISM  227 

highest  moral  purposes.  As  the  doctrine  of  the  im- 
manence of  God  circumvents  scepticism  by  seeing  in 
all  the  processes  of  nature  the  activity  of  the  divine, 
ethical  theism  circumvents  it  by  finding  the  divine  in 
another  sphere  altogether.  In  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other  faith  in  God  is  possible  to  the  man  most  com- 
pletely under  the  control  of  the  scientific  spirit  and 
most  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  modern  atti- 
tude. Of  course,  this  kind  of  theism  goes  as  far 
beyond  mere  naturalism  and  demands  as  much  faith  as 
any  other  kind.  It  is  not  science,  but  religion,  and 
science  can  neither  prove  nor  disprove  it.  It  cannot 
be  demonstrated;  it  must  be  taken  on  trust.  It  is  a 
postulate,  not  a  conclusion,  a  creative  act  of  the  moral 
will,  not  an  enforced  deduction  from  the  observed 
phenomena  of  nature,  and  it  may  be  rejected  by  him 
who  will. 

The  question  naturally  emerges  in  connection  with 
the  ethical  theism  we  are  considering,  what  relation 
does  the  cosmos  bear  to  the  God  thus  postulated  to 
meet  the  needs  of  our  moral  life?  The  tendency  of 
such  theism  is  undoubtedly  to  read  divinity  in  terms 
of  moral  character  rather  than  of  substance  or  physi- 
cal power.     The  words  of  Browning — 

"For  the  loving  worm  within  its  clod 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  his  worlds,  I  wJll  dare  to  say"-— 

represent  a  sentiment  that  is  very  common  among 
religious  men  to-day.  And  this,  of  course,  puts  a 
different  face  upon  the  whole  question  of  God's  rela- 


228         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEA& 

tion  to  the  universe.  The  conception  of  divinity  does 
not  of  itself  demand,  as  it  once  did,  the  assumption 
that  God  must  be  the  Absolute  which  includes  all  that 
is,  or  the  almighty  Creator  to  whom  all  is  due.  If  it 
be  recognized  by  ethical  theism  that  the  world  is  of 
him,  or  his  handiwork,  it  must  be  on  other  grounds 
altogether. 

According  to  Kant,  the  happiness  which  consti- 
tutes a  necessary  element  of  the  highest  good  is  guar- 
anteed only  if  a  first  cause  be  assumed  to  whom  the 
order  of  nature  is  due,  and  who  can  therefore  so 
control  it  as  to  make  it  contribute  to  the  welfare  of 
the  virtuous.  According  to  Fichte,  the  world  exists 
simply  as  a  sphere  for  the  exercise  of  our  moral  wills, 
and  cannot  be  regarded  as  in  any  way  independent. 
According  to  Ritschl,  God's  supreme  purpose  to  cre- 
ate a  kingdom  or  society  in  which  love  and  sympathy 
and  service  reign  involves  his  creation  of  all  that  is 
to  be  a  means  to  the  realization  of  the  great  end. 

Thus  by  Kant  and  Fichte  and  Ritschl,  the  world 
was  teleologically  explained  as  a  means  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  purpose  of  God.  And  this,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  is  the  position  of  most  of  those  who  postulate 
God  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  moral  life.  Whether 
it  be  interpreted  idealistically  or  realistically,  the  uni- 
verse in  which  we  live,  and  which  constitutes  the  the- 
ater of  our  moral  as  well  as  of  our  physical  activity, 
is  commonly  thought  of  as  due  to  God,  its  creator  and 
preserver.  This,  of  course,  is  to  be  sharply  distin- 
guished from  the  combination  of  cosmical  and  ethical 
theism  referred  to  in  the  previous  chapter,  which  be- 


ETHICAL  THEISM  229 

gins  with  the  God  of  nature  and  then  ascribes  a  moral 
character  to  him  because  the  world  contains  moral 
beings,  the  highest  flower  of  the  evolutionary  process. 
That  is  simply  a  revised  form  of  the  old  argument 
from  effect  to  cause.  This  is  the  method  of  postula- 
tion,  that  our  ethical  ideals  may  be  validated  and  our 
life  in  their  behalf  made  rational  and  sane. 

I  have  said  that  many,  probably  the  great  majority 
of  modern  ethical  theists,  think  of  the  world  as  cre- 
ated by  God,  and  see  in  it  the  theater  of  moral  living, 
or  the  means  thereto.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  those  who  feel  that  to  postulate  a  being  who  shall 
rationalize  and  guarantee  our  moral  ideals  does  not 
necessarily  involve  postulating  a  creator  of  the  uni- 
verse. Some  of  these  are  convinced  dualists,  or 
pluralists,  a  tribe  less  common  perhaps  in  modern  days 
than  the  tribe  of  monists,  but  at  present  rapidly  in- 
creasing among  us.  Some  feel  particularly  the  ethical 
difficulties  involved  in  the  assumption  of  God's  cos- 
mical  control,  and  find  it  easier  to  conceive  of  him  as 
the  Christian  Marcion  did  in  the  second  century,  as 
a  moral  power  working  in  a  world  for  which  he  is 
not  himself  responsible,  or  in  other  words  as  a  limited 
instead  of  an  absolute  God.  It  is  this  kind  of  theism 
to  which  Professor  William  James  has  given  expres- 
sion in  many  of  his  writings,  as  for  instance  in  the 
following  passage  in  the  volume  entitled  A  Pluralistic 
Universe:  "The  only  way  to  escape  from  the  para- 
doxes and  perplexities  that  a  consistently  thought  out 
monistic  universe  suffers  from  as  from  a  species  of 
auto-intoxication,  the  mystery  of  the  fall,  namely,  of 


230         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

reality  lapsing  into  appearance,  truth  into  error,  per- 
fection into  imperfection;  of  evil,  in  short;  the  mys- 
tery of  universal  determinism,  of  the  block  universe, 
eternal  and  without  a  history,  etc. — the  only  way  of 
escape,*  I  say,  from  all  this  is  to  be  frankly  pluralistic 
and  assume  that  the  superhuman  consciousness,  how- 
ever vast  it  may  be,  has  itself  an  external  environment 
and  consequently  is  finite.  .  .  .  The  line  of  least  re- 
sistance, then,  as  it  seems  to  me,  both  in  theology  and 
in  philosophy,  is  to  accept  along  with  the  superhuman 
consciousness  the  notion  that  it  is  not  all  embracing, 
the  notion  in  other  words,  that  there  is  a  God,  but  that 
he  is  finite  either  in  power  or  in  knowledge  or  in  both 
at  once.  These  I  need  hardly  tell  you  are  the  terms 
in  which  common  men  have  usually  carried  on  their 
active  commerce  with  God;  and  the  monistic  perfec- 
tions that  make  the  notion  of  it  so  paradoxical  prac- 
tically and  morally  are  the  colder  additions  of  remote 
professorial  minds  operating  in  distans  upon  concep- 
tual substitutes  for  him  alone."  ^ 

A  still  more  thoroughgoing  repudiation  of  the  doc- 
trine of  divine  creation  is  to  be  found  in  the  personal 
idealism  of  .Professor  Howison,  of  the  University  of 
California,  as  set  forth  in  his  volume  entitled  The  Lim- 
its of  Evolution  and  Other  Essays,  published  in  1901, 
and  again  with  important  appendices  in  1904.  Pro- 
fessor Howison  is  an  ardent  and  consistent  pluralist, 
maintaining  the  eternal,  that  is,  the  uncaused  existence 
of  a  vast  commonwealth  of  free  spirits,  each  self -ex- 
istent, self -active,  and  absolutely  real.  This  common- 
er. 310  ff. 


ETHICAL   THEISM  23 1 

wealth  of  free  spirits  is  made  up  of  the  perfect  being 
God,  and  of  imperfect  beings  or  men  who  are  sufficient 
in  number  to  represent  every  degree  of  possible  diver- 
gence from  the  ideal.  The  characteristic  difference  be- 
tween God  and  men  is  not  that  God  is  infinite  and  men 
only  finite,  for,  in  a  true  sense  all  spirits  are  infinite, 
infinity  being  a  synonym  of  eternity  or  self -existence. 
Rather  the  difference  is  that  men  possess  a  sensuous 
consciousness  which  God  lacks.  Hence  in  every  man 
there  is  a  conflict  between  the  free  reason  moving  in 
harmony  with  its  ideal  and  the  check  given  by  its  sen- 
sory nature.  Human  virtue  consists  in  the  control  of 
the  sensory  nature  by  the  ideal,  and  man's  ethical  life 
is  a  progressive  overcoming  of  the  lower  by  the  higher. 
None  of  these  spiritual  beings  is  a  creature  or  owes  his 
origin  to  any  other.  All  are  alike  eternal,  ultimate  and 
irreducible  realities.  God  is  not  the  creator  but  the 
ideal :  the  only  being  who  fully  expresses  the  ideal  of 
all,  and  to  whom,  therefore,  they  all  aspire,  and  by 
whom  as  a  standard  they  measure  themselves. 

As  men  are  not  creatures  of  God,  so  nature,  too,  is 
not  his  creation.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  eternal 
and  self -existent  as  spirits  are ;  on  the  contrary,  it  owes 
its  reality  to  human  minds,  for  Howison  is  a  thorough- 
going idealist.  He  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  world 
of  nature  is  not  a  multiplicity  of  separate,  unrelated, 
and  wholly  diverse  worlds,  not  by  appealing  to  the 
creative  activity  of  God,  as  Berkeley  did,  or  assuming 
an  absolute  consciousness  which  unifies  all  phenomena, 
as  Hegel  did,  but  by  recognizing  that  God  as  ideal  has 
a  living  relation  to  all  other  minds,  and  therefore  also 


232         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

to  nature.  That  is,  nature  is  one,  because  of  the  har- 
mony of  all  spirits  in  the  possession  of  a  common  ideal 
toward  which  they  all  strive.  By  his  theory  of  eternal 
spirits  independent  of  God,  Howison  is,  of  course,  able 
to  relieve  God  completely  from  the  charge  of  being  the 
author  of  evil,  either  natural  or  moral.  God  is  re- 
sponsible "only  for  the  good  which  gradually  arises 
in  the  world ;  and  even  for  this  good  only  in  chief  and 
not  solely;  for  to  every  mind  that  promotes  the  good 
and  helps  to  check  the  evil  belongs  inde feasibly  the 
credit  of  his  part  in  the  increase  of  good  and  the  de- 
crease of  evil.'*  ^ 

The  notion  of  God  as  creator  or  efficient  cause  How- 
ison regards  as  the  root  of  a  multitude  of  errors.  Thus 
he  says :  "If  we  are  to  have  a  moral  order  in  the 
world  of  ultimate  reality,  an  order  necessarily  based 
upon  the  autonomy  of  the  individual  mind,  we  must 
abandon  what  may  be  called  creationism;  must  aban- 
don it  in  all  its  forms  and  preeminently  in  the  two  chief 
forms  which  have  come  into  such  serious  conflict  since 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century — I  mean,  of 
course,  (i)  the  old  dualistic  (or  transcendent)  crea- 
tionism of  Hebraic  theology,  and  (2)  the  later  monistic 
(or  immanential)  creationism  of  Hegelianism  and  the 
evolutionary  philosophy.' '  ^  "The  theme  of  literal  crea- 
tion," he  says  again,  "is  so  inwrought  into  the  struc- 
ture of  historic  thinking  that  it  will  require  long 
struggles  on  the  part  of  criticism  to  get  rid  of  it. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  church  and  the  philo- 

*  The  Limits  of  Evolution,  second  edition,  p.  392. 
'Ibid.,  p.  417. 


ETHICAL   THEISM  233 

sophical  schools  it  may  be  said  to  have  become  in  fact 
institutional,  so  that  combating  it  is  like  fighting  or- 
ganized civilization  itself.  Yet  one  can  make  the  truth 
clear  that  only  by  the  dislodgment  of  it  is  the  success 
of  the  deeper  principle  possible,  which  is  the  real  soul 
of  civilization.  I  mean  the  principle  of  moral  life, 
the  life  of  duty  freely  followed."  ^ 

Here  we  come  upon  Howison's  real  and  underlying 
interest  which  is  through  and  through  ethical.  The 
moral  life  demands  freedom,  and  genuine  freedom,  he 
maintains,  is  not  possible  if  God  be  the  creator  of 
men,  any  more  than  if  he  be  the  great  All  of  which 
men  are  but  parts  or  expressions.  Hence  the  doc- 
trine of  divine  creation  is  to  be  wholly  rejected. 

There  are  other  modern  ethical  theists  who  assume 
an  entirely  negative  attitude  toward  the  question  of 
creation.  They  do  not  deny  a  creator  and  ruler  of 
the  world,  but  they  are  content  to  do  without  him. 
They  do  not  find  the  moral  and  the  physical  always 
bound  indissolubly  together,  and  it  seems  to  them 
conceivable  that  power  adequate  to  the  establishment 
of  righteousness  in  the  world,  power  adequate  to  the 
creation  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  may  exist 
even  though  the  world  be  not  itself  the  work  of  God. 
The  need  that  has  led  them  to  postulate  God  requires 
no  affirmations  as  to  his  relation  to  the  world,  and 
they  are  unwilling  to  make  any  such  affirmations. 
This  agnostic  attitude,  which  is  akin  to  the  dominant 
spirit  of  modern  science,  is  very  marked  in  connection 
with  modern  ethical  theism.  It  may  not  go  as  far  as 
*  Ibid.,  p.  394- 


234         THE    RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

has  just  been  indicated,  but  it  instinctively  refrains 
from  many  of  the  assertions  readily  made  by  theists 
of  another  type. 

Modern  ethical  theism  has  had  its  effect  upon  many 
other  Christian  doctrines,  transforming  or  modifying 
them  to  a  greater  or  less  degree.  By  way  of  illus- 
tration reference  may  be  made  to  Ritschl's  interpre- 
tation of  the  person  and  work  of  Christ,^  which  was 
in  sharpest  contrast  with  the  interpretations  of 
Schleiermacher  and  Hegel  referred  to  in  the  previous 
chapter.  According  to  Ritschl,  salvation  consists  in 
victory  over  the  world,  through  trust  in  God  and 
through  devotion  to  his  will,  and  the  work  of  Christ 
is  to  arouse  this  trust  and  to  inspire  this  devotion  in 
other  men.  It  was  through  his  perfect  trust  in  God, 
his  complete  knowledge  of  God's  will,  and  his  un- 
swerving devotion  to  it,  that  Christ  won  his  victory; 
and  he  mediates  his  knowledge,  his  trust,  and  his 
devotion  to  us  by  his  life  and  teaching.  His  death 
was  an  entirely  natural  event,  and  had  no  special  sig- 
nificance, except  as  it  showed  the  completeness  of  his 
devotion  to  God's  will  and  his  faithfulness  to  the  call- 
ing in  which  God  had  placed  him.  His  resurrection, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  a  part  of  his  victory.  The 
judgment  of  the  Christian  world  that  he  rose  from 
the  dead  means  the  conviction  that  his  victory  was 
not  partial  merely  and  temporary,  but  complete  and 
permanent. 

To  us,  Ritschl  maintains,  Jesus  has  the  value  of 

God,   for  he  mediates  our  victory  over  the  world, 

*  See  his  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,  vol.  Ill,  chapter  VI. 


ETHICAL   THEISM  235 

which  is  what  we  need  God  for  and  seek  him  for. 
Communing  with  Christ  we  commune  with  God. 
Communion  means  to  share  in  another's  purpose  and 
make  it  one's  own;  and  the  purpose  of  Christ  is  the 
purpose  of  God,  for  it  is  the  highest  purpose  we 
know,  and,  if  it  be  not  God's,  then  God  is  less  than 
Christ  to  us,  and  of  such  a  God  we  have  no  need. 
The  deity  of  Christ  resides  in  his  knowledge  of  the 
divine  purpose  and  its  mediation  to  us.  His  deity 
does  not  lie  in  the  substance  of  which  he  is  composed, 
nor  does  it  depend  in  any  way  upon  his  origin. 
Neither  preexistence  nor  virgin  birth  has  any  signifi- 
cance, and  hence  there  is  no  reason  to  assert  either  the 
one  or  the  other.  If  a  unity  of  essence  between  Christ 
and  God  be  demanded,  Ritschl  replies  that  such  a 
unity  is  of  no  consequence,  and  that  in  any  case  we 
can  know  nothing  about  it.  The  only  unity  discover- 
able by  us,  and  the  only  kind  that  counts  is  a  unity  of 
sympathy,  of  will,  and  of  purpose.  This  alone  can 
manifest  itself  in  the  personal  life,  and  no  other  life 
has  any  religious  or  ethical  significance. 

This  conception  of  Christ's  deity  is  to  be  sharply 
distinguished  from  that  which  finds  it  in  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  character.  It  is  frequently  said :  All  men 
are  sinners;  Christ  alone  was  sinless,  and  hence  he 
must  have  been  divine,  perfection  being  an  attribute 
of  Deity  alone.  His  divinity  is  thus  proved  by  his 
moral  perfectness  and  resides  therein.  This  is  a  very 
common  conclusion  to-day  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  abandoned  the  old  cosmical  and  substantial  no- 
tions of  an  earlier  age,  and  is  entirely  in  line  with  the 


236         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

controlling  interest  of  modern  ethical  theism.  But 
it  is  quite  other  than  Ritschl's  view,  and  it  is  beset 
with  the  difficulty  that  we  cannot  fully  read  the  inner 
character  or  life  of  any  man.  If  the  divinity  of 
Christ  depends  upon  his  absolute  perfection,  it  is 
nothing  more  than  a  dogmatic  assumption.  The  only 
sound  basis  for  belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  the 
work  of  Christ;  not  what  he  was,  but  what  he  has 
done  for  us  and  other  men.  The  instinct  of  Chris- 
tians of  other  ages  was  entirely  sound  in  this  matter, 
when  they  believed  Christ  divine  because  by  him  the 
nature  of  man  was  transformed,  or  the  divine  for- 
giveness of  sin  made  possible.  To  this  instinct 
Ritschl's  interpretation,  like  Schleiermacher's,  too, 
for  that  matter,  does  full  justice.  We  assert  the  deity 
of  Christ,  not  because  of  his  moral  perfection,  though 
this  Ritschl,  too,  believed  in,  but  because  he  has  given 
us  the  divine  purpose  by  which  we  win  our  victory 
over  the  world,  and  has  given  it,  not  simply  by  word 
of  mouth,  but  in  his  life,  so  that  we  witness  the  vic- 
tory already  won,  which  we,  too,  would  win.  The 
divinity  of  Christ  lies  wholly  in  the  ethical  sphere, 
according  to  Ritschl,  but  its  mark  is  not  perfection,  a 
quantitative  and  static  notion,  but  efficiency,  a  qualita- 
tive and  dynamic  one;  not  what  he  was  in  himself, 
but  what  he  has  done  for  us.  This  gives  us  our  be- 
lief in  his  deity,  as  it  gives  us  our  belief  in  the  deity  of 
God  himself. 

Ritschl  is  often  accused  of  denying  the  deity  of 
Christ,  because  he  found  it  solely  in  the  sphere  of  ethi- 
cal purpose.     But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  one  ever 


ETHICAL   THEISM  237 

assigned  Christ  a  higher  place.  Instead  of  beginning 
with  God  and  descending  to  Christ,  his  revealer,  he 
began  with  Christ  and  found  God  through  him.  It 
was  his  need  of  victory  that  impelled  him  to  search 
for  God,  and  he  found  the  means  of  victory  in  Christ. 
Christ  thus  acquired  the  value  of  God  for  Ritschl, 
and  to  accuse  him  of  denying  or  minimizing  the  di- 
vinity of  Christ  is  to  turn  his  whole  system  upside 
down.  If  Ritschlianism  is  to  be  criticized  at  all  in 
this  matter,  it  is  not  that  it  assigns  too  low  but  too 
high  a  place  to  Christ  in  the  experience  of  the  Chris- 
tian. And  this  accounts  at  least  in  part  for  the  fact 
that  he  has  had  few  disciples  among  the  Unitarians. 

If  it  be  said  that,  as  we  come  to  a  knowledge  of 
God's  purpose,  and  make  it  our  own,  we,  too,  attain 
to  whatever  divinity  Christ  possessed,  Ritschl  replies 
that  Christ  remains  always  supreme,  for  it  was  from 
him  we  learned  the  divine  purpose,  and  fulfill  it  as 
completely  as  we  may  we  can  never  alter  our  relation 
to  him.  He  is  the  Master  and  we  the  disciples.  He 
has  revealed  the  purpose  to  us;  we  have  learned  it 
from  him;  and  the  victory  we  achieve  but  confirms 
the  divineness  of  him  from  whom  we  gained  the  means 
of  victory. 

Nor  is  the  ascription  of  divinity  to  Christ,  in 
Ritschl's  opinion,  unimportant,  or  a  mere  matter  of 
words.  If  we  withhold  divinity  from  him,  it  is  be- 
cause we  seek  for  something  else  in  God ;  because  we 
are  not  satisfied  to  find  him  in  the  sphere  of  moral 
purpose,  or  because  something  else  is  higher  to  us 
than  the  kingdom  of  God  which  Christ  revealed.    In 


238         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

Other  words,  according  to  Ritschl,  if  we  refrain  from 
ascribing  divinity  to  Christ,  it  is  either  because  our 
moral  ideals  are  not  his,  or  because  our  theism  is  not 
exclusively  ethical.  The  divinity  of  Christ  must, 
therefore,  be  recognized,  not  as  a  doctrine  of  minor 
importance  to  Ritschl,  or  as  a  mere  appendix  to  his 
theological  system,  but  as  an  expression  of  the  real 
essence  of  his  moral  ideal  and  the  very  heart  of  his 
religious  faith.  At  the  same  time,  the  mistake  should 
not  be  made  of  identifying  his  conception  of  Christ's 
divinity  with  the  traditional  orthodox  doctrine,  Cath- 
olic and  Protestant.  Like  Schleiermacher's  concep- 
tion, it  is  as  different  from  that  doctrine  as  it  well 
could  be. 

The  man  who  accepts  either  Schleiermacher's  or 
Ritschl's  interpretation  of  Christ's  person  and  work 
lives  in  another  world  from  that  in  which  the  Unita- 
rian controversy  arose,  and  the  old  shibboleths  mean 
nothing  to  him.  Christ  is  his  leader  and  master; 
through  Christ  he  finds  God.  Satisfied  of  this,  he 
cares  not  for  the  old  definitions  of  unity  and  trinity, 
for  the  old  distinctions  between  substance  and  person, 
for  the  old  assertions  of  equality  and  subordination. 
Nor  is  he  interested  in  any  attempted  discrimination 
between  the  Deity  of  Christ  and  his  divinity.  In 
Christ  he  finds  the  consciousness  of  God,  or  the 
purpose  of  God,  which  he,  too,  would  share,  and, 
sharing  it,  he  is  saved.  If  this  be  a  Christian's  experi- 
ence, he  can  never  count  Christ  other  than  divine;  if 
this  be  not  his  experience,  it  can  make  little  difference 
to  him  whether  Christ  be  divine  or  not. 


4 

ETHICAL  THEISM*  239, 

Thus  modern  ethical  theism  profoundly  modifies 
the  old  conceptions  of  the  person  and  work  of  Christ, 
the  nature  and  means  of  salvation,  the  character  of 
the  Christian  life,  and  many  others,  relieving  them 
from  the  physical  and  legal  interpretations  which  for- 
merly attached  to  them,  and  reading  them  in  exclu- 
sively ethical  terms.  Though  so  different  in  its  in- 
terest and  in  many  of  its  effects  from  the  doctrine  of 
divine  immanence,  it  is  equally  in  line  with  important 
intellectual  and  moral  tendencies  of  our  own  day,  and, 
sometimes  in  connection  with  immanence,  sometimes 
independently  of  it  and  even  in  opposition  to  it,  is 
more  and  more  widely  affecting  contemporary  re- 
ligious thought. 

Other  forms  of  ethical  theism,  besides  those  de- 
scribed in  this  chapter,  have  been  current  in  modern 
times,  but  I  have  not  thought  it  important  to  discuss 
them  here,  for  they  have  been  for  the  most  part  simply 
reproductions  or  modifications  of  inherited  ideas,  or 
have  resulted  from  the  combination  of  the  ethical  with 
some  other  and  alien  interest.  It  has  seemed  worth 
while,  in  this  chapter,  to  deal,  by  way  of  illustration, 
only  with  certain  relatively  consistent  forms  in  which 
the  break  with  traditional  views  is  most  complete. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


THE   CHARACTER    OF   GOD. 


In  the  medieval  conception  of  God's  character,  and 
not  in  it  alone,  disparate  notions  were  combined 
which  never  found  complete  reconciliation.  God  was 
thought  of  as  the  avenger  of  sin,  and,  at  the  same 
time  as  a  merciful  being,  providing  men  with  a  way 
of  escape  from  the  consequences  of  their  transgres- 
sions. The  belief  that  God  punishes  sin  was  supposed 
to  be  necessary  for  morality's  sake.  Man  is  vicious 
by  nature,  and  needs  to  be  deterred  by  fear  from  fol- 
lowing his  native  impulses.  A  knowledge  of  the  nat- 
ural effects  of  sin  is  not  enough.  The  apprehension 
of  punishment  by  an  infinite  being  is  required  to  keep 
him  virtuous.  Thus  the  pagan  Rhadamanthus  en- 
tered the  Christian  pantheon,  or  rather,  was  identi- 
fied with  the  supreme  God  of  heaven  and  earth. 

The  relation  between  God  and  man  was  conceived 
in  juridic  terms.  God  is  the  infinite  sovereign,  and 
man's  chief  duty  is  to  submit  to  him.  The  attitude 
demanded  is  humility  of  the  most  extreme  kind.  Sin 
consists  in  rebellion  against  God,  and  has  its  roots  in 
human  pride  and  self-confidence.  It  is  an  indignity 
to  God,  an  infringement  of  his  glory,  an  insult  to 

240 


THE    CHARACTER    OF    GOD  24I 

his  majesty.  It  is  not  simply  corruption,  disease,  or 
defect,  the  failure  to  measure  up  to  an  ideal  standard 
which  may  be  conceived  as  resulting  naturally  in  fatal 
consequences;  it  is  personal  rebellion  against  a  per- 
sonal God,  and  hence  requires  punishment  at  his 
hands.  In  order  to  provide  adequately  for  such  pun- 
ishment, hell  was  created  as  a  place  of  eternal  tor- 
ment, to  which  the  wicked  go  after  death.  That  the 
torment,  according  to  Christian  teaching,  was  eternal, 
instead  of  lasting  only  for  a  time,  was  regarded  by 
the  Christian  apologist,  Justin  Martyr,  as  one  of  the 
principal  marks  of  the  superiority  of  Christianity  to 
Platonism.  As  a  deterrent  from  sin  the  Christian 
doctrine  seemed  far  more  effective. 

With  the  notion  of  God  as  an  avenger  of  sin,  which 
Christianity  shared  with  Judaism  and  paganism,  was 
combined  another  idea,  commonly  spoken  of  as  the 
specific  contribution  of  Christianity,  but  actually  ex- 
istent also,  both  in  paganism  and  Judaism,  of  a  God 
of  mercy  saving  men  from  the  consequences  of  their 
evil  deeds.  The  love  of  God  taught  by  Christ  was 
understood  to  mean  his  provision  of  a  way  of  escape 
from  the  vengeance  which  he  himself  takes  on  sin. 
Thus  the  two  attributes  of  righteousness  and  mercy 
were  set  over  against  each  other  in  the  character  of 
God.  He  is  righteous  in  punishing;  he  is  merciful 
in  providing  a  way  of  escape  from  his  own  ven- 
geance. He  is  at  once  a  just  judge  and  a  gracious  sa- 
viour. Eternal  punishment  is  the  great  evidence  of 
his  justice;  the  Christian  scheme  of  salvation  the 
great  evidence  of  his  mercy.    His  justice  might  have 


242         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

exhibited  itself  also  in  the  heavenly  reward  which  it 
was  believed  he  would  bestow  upon  the  righteous, 
were  it  not  that  all  virtue  was  recognized  as  super- 
natural in  its  origin  and  the  fruit  of  divine  grace. 
And  hence,  though  God  rewarded  those  making  the 
right  use  of  the  grace  received  through  the  sacra- 
ments, not  his  justice  but  his  mercy  was  displayed  in 
those  rewards. 

This  common  Catholic  interpretation  of  the  divine 
character  passed  over  into  Protestantism.  It  is  true 
that  Luther  thought  of  God  chiefly  as  a  loving  and 
gracious  Father,  but  he  was  loving  and  gracious  only 
because  of  the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Christ  and  only 
to  those  who  shared  the  benefits  of  that  sacrifice.  To 
the  sinner  he  remained  the  righteous  judge,  a  God 
of  wrath.  This  dualism  in  the  conception  of  God 
had  an  effect  among  Protestants  similar  to  that  which 
it  had  in  Catholicism.  It  proved  difficult  to  distin- 
guish as  sharply  as  Luther  had  done  the  attitude  of 
God  toward  the  believer  and  the  unbeliever.  By  Cal- 
vin and  the  Reformed  theologians  in  general  the  re- 
lation between  God  and  the  Christian  was  pictured  in 
the  old  juridic  way,  and  the  sovereignty  of  God,  rather 
than  His  fatherhood,  became  the  controlling  doctrine 
of  the  Reformed  system.  The  Christian  is  a  subject 
of  God  as  truly  as  anyone  else.  Obedience  is  the 
supreme  duty  and  humility  the  cardinal  virtue.  God 
was  recognized,  to  be  sure,  as  a  father,  but  this  did 
not  mean  that  a  new  conception  of  the  relationship 
between  God  and  man  was  substituted  for  the  old, 
that  the  idea  of  the  family  took  the  place  of  the  state. 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  243 

Fatherhood  was  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  absolute 
authority.  As  Zwingh  remarks,  "We  call  God  Father, 
because  he  can  do  what  he  pleases  with  us." 

Indeed  in  their  effort  to  undermine  and  destroy  the 
Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  justification  by  works, 
the  Reformers,  Luther  included,  made  the  divine  sov- 
ereignty far  more  absolute  and  unconditional  than 
did  their  Catholic  contemporaries.  The  ability  and 
independence  of  man  were  repudiated  in  an  even  more 
extreme  way  than  in  Catholicism,  and  by  the  Re- 
formed theologians  God  was  pictured  as  creating  men 
solely  for  his  own  glory  and  decreeing  human  sin  in 
order  that  in  the  eternal  punishment  of  some  he  might 
i^nifest  his  attribute  of  justice  and  in  the  salvation 
of  others  his  attribute  of  mercy.  The  world  was  re- 
duced to  a  mere  theater  for  the  display  of  the  divine 
attributes,  and  men  became  simply  marionettes  to 
whom  God  assigned  such  roles  as  he  pleased. 

By  Calvin  and  those  who  came  after  him  the  attri- 
bute of  righteousness  was  regarded  as  rooted  of 
necessity  in  the  very  essence  of  God,  while  the  attri- 
bute of  mercy  was  supposed  to  be  optional  with  him, 
and  to  have  its  seat  in  his  will.  He  must  be  righteous ; 
he  might  be  merciful,  if  he  chose;  but  he  was  under 
no  obligation,  either  to  himself  or  to  others,  to  show 
mercy  to  anyone.  Righteousness  meant  treating  every- 
body as  he  deserved.  As  nobody  deserves  anything 
but  punishment,  righteousness  could  manifest  itself 
only  in  punishing.  Mercy  meant  treating  a  person 
better  than  he  deserved,  and  such  treatment  no  one 
could  demand.     It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  infinity 


244         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

was  supposed  to  involve  righteousness,  as  it  involved 
omnipotence  and  omnipresence,  but  mercy  was  in  no 
way  implied  by  it.  An  infinite  God  might  lack  the  at- 
tribute altogether,  or  might  exercise  it  when  and  how 
he  chose. 

Gradually,  with  the  spread  of  the  idea  of  the  abil- 
ity and  worth  of  the  natural  man,  traditional  notions 
of  God  began  to  change.  As  human  depravity  was 
minimized,  the  vindictive  justice  of  God  seemed  less 
important,  and  as  emphasis  was  increasingly  laid  upon 
the  natural  constitution  of  things,  it  came  more  and 
more  to  be  believed  that  sin  breeds  its  own  painful 
consequences  and  needs  no  supernatural  sanctions. 
Already  in  Socinianism  we  find  doubt  thrown  upon 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  and  by  many  of 
the  rationalists  it  was  rejected  altogether.  Under 
the  same  general  influence  opposition  arose  to  the  doc- 
trine of  unconditional  predestination  and  came  to 
more  or  less  emphatic  expression  in  Socinianism  in 
Arminianism,  in  rationalism,  and  in  American  Uni- 
tarianism.  The  opposition  was  greatly  strengthened, 
particularly  in  the  eighteenth  century,  by  the  rapid 
spread  of  the  idea  of  human  equality  and  the  doc- 
trine of  equal  rights  for  all,  which  found  ultimately 
so  striking  an  utterance  in  the  French  Revolution  and 
in  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence.  As 
the  rights  of  men  over  against  each  other  and  over 
against  their  rulers  were  emphasized,  their  rights  over 
against  God  received  fuller  recognition.  Absolute 
and  unconditioned  sovereignty  was  more  and  more 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  245 

widely  regarded  as  an  anomaly,  whether  in  human  or 
divine  government. 

In  general  the  change  may  be  phrased  as  the  substi- 
tution of  the  spirit  of  democracy  for  that  of  feudal- 
ism. The  God  of  Calvinism  was  consistent  with  the 
feudal  notion  of  society  which  dominated  the  Middle 
Ages.  As  democratic  ideals  crowded  out  the  aristo- 
cratic and  authoritarian  ideals  of  an  earlier  day,  of 
course  the  character  of  God  appeared  in  a  different 
perspective.  His  absoluteness  and  his  responsibility 
only  to  his  own  character  gave  way  to  the  notion  of 
relativity  and  responsibility  to  men.  They,  too,  have 
rights,  and  God  is  bound  to  respect  them.  Not  his 
own  good,  or  his  own  character,  or  his  own  pleasure, 
but  the  good  of  the  people,  of  the  commonwealth  of 
humanity,  is  paramount,  and  must  dictate  divine  as 
well  as  human  activity.  The  democratic  ideal  might 
be  long  in  realizing  itself  in  human  societies  and 
states.  It  is  still,  indeed,  largely  unrealized.  But  it 
affected  the  theories  of  men  in  every  realm  not  less 
in  theological  than  in  political  affairs.  Men  might 
hesitate  to  apply  democratic  principles  in  a  world  still 
under  the  sway  of  aristocratic  traditions,  but  it  was 
easy  to  apply  such  principles  in  the  sphere  of  theol- 
ogy, where  practice  had  no  place.  Practical  religion, 
like  politics  and  economics,  might  still  resist  the  en- 
trance of  the  new  idea,  and  many  churches  might  re- 
main as  much  aristocratic  corporations  as  ever.  But 
the  thought  of  God,  the  interpretation  of  his  charac- 
ter, was  everywhere  affected,  even  where  it  was  not 
transformed. 


246         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

There  was  an  immense  amount  of  sentimentalism 
in  it  all.  The  a  priori  character  of  the  reasoning  and 
the  disregard  of  observed  facts  and  conditions  were 
as  complete  as  in  the  case  of  Calvinism.  The  new 
doctrine  of  God  was  based  as  much  upon  mere  ab- 
stract reasoning  as  the  old.  And  the  notion  of  human 
rights  and  equality  was  drawn  even  less  from  the 
facts  of  life  than  the  traditional  notion  of  total  de- 
pravity. But  the  spirit  of  the  modern  age  was  in  it, 
nevertheless — the  self-confidence  and  self-assertion  of 
a  new  era  in  the  history  of  man.  Soberer  thoughts 
might  follow.  The  humble  study  of  facts  might  take 
the  place  in  course  of  time  of  the  unbridled  theoriz- 
ing of  the  rationalists.  But  they  succeeded  at  any 
rate  in  permanently  breaking  the  dominance  of  a  sys- 
tem utterly  alien  to  the  temper  of  the  modern  world. 

While  the  spirit  of  the  modern  age  was  thus  assert- 
ing itself  against  a  theology  which  had  made  God 
everything  and  man  nothing,  and  had  interpreted  the 
divine  in  terms  of  absolute  power,  other  influences 
were  leading  to  growing  emphasis  upon  the  love  of 
God  and  to  a  reconstruction  of  the  idea  of  divine 
fatherhood  so  widely  lost  in  Christian  thought.  The 
new  humanitarianism  of  the  eighteenth  century  made 
it  necessary  for  those  who  still  believed  in  God  to 
read  him  in  humanitarian  terms.  As  benevolence 
and  kindness  and  sympathy  and  helpfulness  became 
cardinal  virtues  among  men,  they  could  not  but  be- 
come prominent  in  men's  picture  of  God.  He  could 
not  be  worse  than  they.  He  could  not  treat  his  crea- 
tures with  a  disregard  of  their  comfort  and  happiness 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  247 

which  would  disgrace  an  earthly  ruler.  The  note  of 
contempt  for  the  character  of  the  God  of  traditional 
orthodoxy,  particularly  the  God  of  Calvinism,  is  very 
noteworthy  in  the  liberal  writings  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  whether  religious  or  secular. 

The  same  tendency  to  emphasize  the  fatherhood  of 
God  was  promoted  by  the  growing  interest  in  the  life 
of  Christ,  which  marked  the  dawning  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  general  recrudescence  of  the  historical 
spirit,  which  succeeded  the  dominance  of  rationalism, 
accrued  to  the  benefit  of  Christianity  as  of  many 
other  things.  It  became  more  and  more  the  fashion 
to  study  origins,  to  trace  movements  and  institutions 
back  to  their  beginnings,  and  knowledge  of  the  char- 
acter and  career  of  Jesus  Christ  profited  greatly  from 
this  tendency.  The  period  now  began  of  lives  of 
Christ — a  period  in  which  we  still  live.  From  every 
point  of  view,  rationalistic,  romantic,  liberal  and  con- 
servative, his  life  and  teaching  were  set  forth,  and  an 
inevitable  result,  of  particular  interest  to  us  in  this 
connection,  was  to  recall  theologians  to  his  interpre- 
tation of  the  character  and  will  of  God.  Falling  in 
as  they  did  with  the  prevailing  tendency  of  the  age, 
those  utterances  of  Jesus  which  teach  God's  father- 
hood and  love,  naturally  received  chief  attention,  as 
they  have  down  to  our  own  day.  And  certainly, 
though  this  rendering  of  Jesus'  portrait  of  the  divine 
character  may  be  both  incomplete  and  one-sided,  at 
any  rate  it  does  justice  to  elements  widely  lost  in  the 
theology  of  historic  Protestantism. 

The  idea   of  the   divine  goodness,   which  in   the 


248         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

eighteenth  century  more  and  more  displaced  the  old 
emphasis  upon  the  divine  power,  took  all  sorts  of 
forms.  A  very  common  notion,  not  at  all  unnatural 
in  view  of  the  situation,  was  that  God's  sole  aim  is  to 
make  men  happy ;  that  the  attribute  of  goodness  which 
is  supreme  in  the  divine  character  prompts  him  to 
do  all  he  can  to  promote  human  comfort  and  satis- 
faction. The  expressions  of  this  idea  are  very  nu- 
merous in  eighteenth-century  literature,  both  ortho- 
dox and  rationalistic.  Archbishop  Tillotson  represents 
God's  goodness  as  that  attribute  which  leads  him  to 
seek  the  happiness  of  others  ^ ;  while  the  deist  Mat- 
thew Tindal  declares  that  "The  ultimate  end  of  all 
God's  Laws,  and  consequently,  of  all  Religion,  is 
human  happiness."  ^ 

In  extraordinary  contrast  with  the  common  thought 
of  his  day  was  the  idea  of  divine  love  held  by  our 
own  great  American  theologian,  Jonathan  Edwards. 
It  is  a  striking  commentary  upon  the  situation  exist- 
ing in  his  time  that,  though  a  thoroughgoing  Calvin- 
ist,  and  devoted  to  the  doctrine  of  God's  absolute  sov- 
ereignty, he  should  yet  make  love,  or  benevolence,  as 
he  preferred  to  call  it,  the  chief  virtue  both  in  man 
and  God.  But  it  was  no  mere  sentimentalism,  or  de- 
sire for  the  happiness  of  the  creature,  that  Edwards 
understood  by  the  divine  benevolence.  He  read  the 
word  in  a  philosophical  rather  than  an  ethical  sense. 
Benevolence  is  approval  of  being  or  delight  in  being. 
True  benevolence  is  strictly  proportioned  to  the  de- 

*  See  his  sermons  on  The  Goodness  of  God. 
^Christianity  as  Old  as  the  Creation,  chap.  IX. 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  249 

gree  of  being  in  its  object.  The  greater  the  being, 
that  is,  the  more  of  existence  it  possesses,  the  more 
it  should  be  loved.  The  supreme  object  of  benevo- 
lence is  being  in  general,  or  God.  Others  possess  real 
being  only  in  so  far  as  they  partake  of  God.  To 
love  any  creature,  whether  oneself,  or  another,  inde- 
pendently of  God,  or  in  greater  degree  than  its  scale 
of  being  warrants,  is  wrong.  The  evil  of  self-love  is 
due  not  to  its  selfishness,  but  to  the  fact  that  it 
accords  to  a  creature  a  disproportionate  amount  of 
affection.  Undue  affection  for  another  is  as  bad  as 
undue  affection  for  oneself.  Only  in  subordination 
to  love  for  God  is  love  for  a  creature  justified.  Love, 
if  it  is  to  be  virtuous,  must  be  proportioned,  not  to 
the  need,  but  to  the  excellence,  of  the  object  loved. 
Holy  love  is  love  for  a  holy  object,  not  love  which 
would  make  the  unholy  holy.^  The  contrast  between 
this  conception  of  benevolence  and  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  with  its  emphasis  upon  love  for  the  unlovely 
and  unworthy,  is  as  great  as  its  contrast  with  the  sen- 
timentalism  of  Edwards'  own  day. 

Kant  taught  that  God  is  at  once  holy  and  good,  and 
is  therefore  to  be  both  reverenced  and  loved.  His 
holiness  means  that  his  supreme  interest  is  in  virtue; 
his  goodness  that  he  promotes  the  coming  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  that  is,  the  combination  of  virtue  with 
the  happiness  suited  thereto.  Thus,  in  spite  of  his 
controlling  emphasis  on  disinterested  virtue,  and  his 
complete  repudiation  of  the  notion  of  reward,  Kant 

^  For  references  see  my  Protestant  Thought  Before  Kant,  p. 
182  S. 


250         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

did  not  quite  succeed  in  breaking  away  from  ration- 
alistic eudsemonism.  The  love  of  God,  according  to 
him,  really  has  reference,  as  was  commonly  believed 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  solely  to  the  happiness  of 
the  creature,  that  is,  in  this  case,  of  the  virtuous. 

In  Schleiermacher,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  an 
altogether  different  conception  of  the  nature  and  sig- 
nificance of  divine  love.  He  made  it  the  chief  of 
God's  attributes,  as  almost  every  one  was  doing  in 
his  day.  Indeed,  he  adopted  for  himself  the  Johan- 
nine  declaration,  "God  is  Love,"  as  the  completest 
definition  of  the  divine  nature.  But  he  denied  that 
the  love  of  God  has  reference  to  the  happiness  of  men. 
Happiness  is  an  entirely  subordinate  matter.  God's 
love  exercises  itself  in  arousing  in  men  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  divine,  which  is  life's  greatest  blessing. 
One  with  God,  as  all  men  are  in  essence,  they  are 
commonly  conscious  only  of  their  single  and  separate 
and  finite  selves.  Their  supreme  need  is  to  become 
aware  that  they  are  truly  part  of  a  larger  whole — the 
infinite  God — and  to  meet  this  need  is  the  controlling 
aim  of  the  divine  love.  This,  of  course,  is  as  far 
removed  as  possible  from  the  current  eudsemonism 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  marks  a  high  degree 
of  spirituality  in  the  conception  of  God's  character. 

The  philosopher  Hegel,  too,  interpreted  God  as 
love.  But,  while  with  Schleiermacher  the  conception 
was  religious  and  aesthetic,  rather  than  ethical;  with 
Hegel  it  was  wholly  metaphysical.  Love  is  a  name 
for  the  eternal  process  of  the  evolution  of  the  abso- 
lute.    God  loves  himself,  but,  in  loving  himself,  he 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  25 1 

loves  all  that  exists,  for  all  is  simply  the  objectification 
of  himself. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  much  was  made  of 
the  love  of  God,  interpreted  in  hedonistic  fashion,  in 
evangelical  as  well  as  in  other  circles.  The  righteous- 
ness and  justice  of  God  retired  into  the  background, 
and  the  old  reaction  against  Calvinism  expressed  it- 
self, both  in  this  country  and  abroad,  in  soft  and  sen- 
timental assertions  of  the  divine  love,  which  often 
seemed  to  deprive  God  of  moral  character  altogether, 
and  to  make  him  a  mere  indulgent  father,  interested 
solely  in  the  comfort  and  pleasure  of  his  children, 
and  not  at  all  in  their  characters  or  achievements. 
This  was  carried  so  far  as  to  breed  another  reaction 
in  many  quarters.  Such  a  God  seemed  to  many  un- 
worthy of  human  worship  and  enervating  to  human 
character.  The  effort  to  restore  the  conception  of 
divine  righteousness  and  to  make  the  doctrine  of  God 
more  virile  and  commanding  has  expressed  itself  in 
many  forms.  Sometimes  it  has  resulted  simply  in 
the  reproduction  of  the  old  idea  of  righteousness  as 
punishment,  many  preachers,  particularly,  thinking  to 
mend  matters  by  reminding  their  hearers  that  God 
punishes  sin  as  well  as  rewards  virtue.  But  this  dual- 
istic  conception  of  God  is  too  crass  and  primitive  for 
the  thinking  man  of  the  modern  world.  We  have 
passed  too  far  beyond  the  old  legal  interpretation  of 
life  to  make  such  ideas  either  credible  or  tolerable. 

Others  have  tried  to  meet  the  difficulty  by  repre- 
senting God  as  chiefly  concerned  in  the  righteousness 
rather  than  the  happiness  of  his  creatures.  Righteous- 


252         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ness,  as  the  attribute  which  leads  God  to  promote  vir- 
tue, is  put  in  the  forefront  and  emphasized  even  more 
than  love.  It  is  thus  interpreted  in  a  higher  sense 
than  in  traditional  theology;  but  there  is  still  left  a 
conflict  of  interests  in  the  character  of  God  which 
accounts  for  much  of  the  uncertainty  and  ineffective- 
ness of  modern  preaching.  One  man  preaches  the 
divine  love,  another  the  divine  righteousness;  or  the 
same  man  preaches  now  the  divine  love  and  now  the 
divine  righteousness,  and  there  remains  with  the  audi- 
tor a  divided  notion  of  God,  which  is  inevitably  either 
confusing  or  self -destructive. 

The  most  important  contribution  of  modern  times 
to  an  understanding  of  the  divine  character  was  made 
by  Ritschl.  He,  too,  like  Schleiermacher  and  Hegel, 
interpreted  God  as  love.  But  the  love  of  God,  as  he 
understood  it,  was  not  the  impulse  to  make  his  crea- 
tures comfortable,  or  to  promote  the  happiness  of 
the  virtuous ;  nor  did  it  find  exercise  in  imparting  the 
divine  nature,  or  in  awakening  men  to  a  consciousness 
of  the  divine.  It  was  rather  the  will  to  promote  the 
spirit  of  love  among  men.  That  God  is  love  means 
that  he  would  have  love  reign  among  his  creatures, 
that  he  would  build  the  divine  kingdom  on  earth,  a 
kingdom  of  mutual  sympathy  and  helpfulness.  The 
divine  love  eventuates,  according  to  Ritschl,  not  in 
anything  passive,  but  in  active  social  service.  It  ac- 
complishes its  purpose  in  arousing  men  not  to  their 
oneness  with  the  divine,  but  to  their  duty  toward  their 
fellows,  not  to  love  for  God,  but  to  love  for  men. 
"Therein,''  Ritschl  says,  "that  we  in  the  kingdom  of 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   GOD  253 

God  love  our  brethren  is  the  will  of  God  realized."  ^ 
In  Ritschl's  reading  of  the  divine  character  the  old 
schism  between  love  and  righteousness  entirely  dis- 
appears. The  divine  righteousness  manifests  itself 
not  in  taking  vengeance  upon  sin,  nor  even  in  pro- 
moting righteousness  among  men,  but  in  the  con- 
stancy of  God's  purpose  of  love.  He  is  righteous  be- 
cause he  swerves  not  from  his  eternal  will  to  establish 
the  kingdom  of  God,  to  build  upon  earth  a  divine  so- 
ciety of  human  love  and  sympathy  and  service.  This 
contribution  of  Ritschl's  was  due  simply  to  his  read- 
ing into  Kant's  conception  of  God  as  the  purpose  to 
promote  the  highest  good  a  genuinely  Christian  con- 
tent, and  to  his  consistency  in  bringing  all  his  thought 
under  the  dominance  of  a  single  controlling  principle. 
Where  the  love  and  the  righteousness  of  God  are  in- 
terpreted as  Ritschl  interpreted  them,  it  is  possible  to 
preach  the  divine  love  without  fear  of  emasculating 
or  enervating  human  character,  and  to  preach  the  di- 
vine righteousness  without  fear  of  belittling  or  ob- 
scuring the  divine  love.  The  age-long  schism  in  the 
character  of  God,  which  played  such  havoc  with  me- 
dieval and  evangelical  piety,  involving  the  Christian 
life  in  a  constant  dualism  between  hope  and  fear,  and 
tending  always  to  keep  the  instinct  of  self-interest  in 
control,  is  finally  done  completely  away,  and  the  con- 
ception of  God  becomes  for  the  first  time  in  Christian 
theology  at  once  ethical  and  consistent  through  and 
through. 
'  Op.  cit,  vol.  Ill,  p.  268. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  SOCIAL  EMPHASIS 

In  marked  contrast  with  the  prevailing  ethical 
ideals  of  our  own  day  the  ideals  of  traditional  Chris- 
tianity have  been  as  a  rule  controllingly  individualis- 
tic. Under  the  influence  of  the  current  dualistic  no- 
tions of  the  ancient  world  the  Christian  life  was  early 
interpreted  as  the  scene  of  a  constant  struggle  be- 
tween the  powers  of  good  and  the  powers  of  evil. 
Over  against  the  Spirit  of  God  were  supposed  to  be 
arrayed  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  all  striving 
to  overmaster  the  Christian  and  drag  him  to  perdi- 
tion. The  natural  man  is  controlled  by  the  lusts  of 
the  flesh  and  the  love  of  the  world ;  the  spiritual  man 
belongs  to  a  higher  realm  and  has  set  his  affections  on 
things  above.  His  character  expresses  itself  particu- 
larly in  victory  over  bodily  passions  and  in  superiority 
to  earthly  pleasures — in  holiness  and  unworldliness. 
The  present  life  is  at  its  worst  wholly  corrupt;  at  its 
best  but  temporary.  The  more  completely  detached 
from  its  interests  and  concerns,  the  more  Christian 
a  man  seemed.  Not  harmony  with  one's  environment, 
as  in  classical  Greek  ethics,  but  revolt  against  it  was 
commonly  inculcated.    This  revolt,  as  a  rule,  took  the 

254 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  255 

form  of  an  effort  to  escape  from  the  present  world, 
rather  than  to  make  it  over  into  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
The  view  of  the  world  was  usually  pessimistic  to  the 
last  degree.  It  is  doomed  to  speedy  and  inevitable 
destruction.  The  ascetic  tendency,  joined  with  this 
pessimistic  estimate  of  the  world,  led  naturally  to 
monasticism,  and  from  the  fifth  century  on,  though 
only  a  minority  of  Christians  ever  became  monks,  the 
monastic  life  was  generally  regarded  as  the  most  con- 
sistent expression  of  the  Christian  ideal,  and  its  faith- 
ful representatives  were  counted  the  real  heroes  of 
the  Church. 

Jesus'  emphasis  upon  love  for  one's  neighbors  was 
not  forgotten  by  the  Christians  of  the  ancient  and 
medieval  world.  From  the  beginning  love  has  been 
a  cardinal  Christian  virtue,  and  has  borne  rich  fruit 
in  all  the  Christian  centuries.  But  it  has  been  socially 
of  less  benefit  than  it  might  have  been,  partly  because 
eternal  salvation  has  seemed  so  overwhelmingly  im- 
portant as  to  make  earthly  welfare  and  happiness 
dwindle  into  insignificance,  and  to  enlist  the  devotion 
of  the  most  unselfish  men  in  the  effort  to  save  their 
brothers'  souls  instead  of  bodies;  partly  because,  when 
love  is  viewed  as  a  virtue,  it  is  natural  to  find  its 
value  rather  in  what  it  expresses  than  in  what  it  ac- 
complishes. Already  in  the  earliest  days  the  tendency 
was  abroad  to  reduce  brotherly  love  to  the  dimensions 
of  mere  charity,  and  to  give  it  as  such  a  place  with 
other  so-called  meritorious  acts  among  the  means  of 
salvation.  As  Augustine  remarked,  "Fasting  and 
almsgiving  are  the  wings  upon  which  prayer  flies  to 


256        THE  RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 
/ 

God."  "'When  poverty  was  thus  thought  of  as  an 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  Christian  virtue,  there 
might  be  the  reHef  of  poverty  on  a  large  scale,  but 
acquiescence  in  the  conditions  making  for  its  contin- 
uance was  all  too  easy. 

Equally  important  was  the  instinctive  conservatism 
of  the  ancient  and  medieval  Church,  with  its  invinci- 
ble prejudice  against  change.  Charity  there  might  be 
in  plenty,  and  even  philanthropy,  but  to  think  of  so 
transforming  the  world  as  to  make  charity  and  phi- 
lanthropy unnecessary  was  impossible.  In  this  con- 
nection Christ's  words,  "The  poor  ye  have  always 
with  you,"  were  sadly  abused  as  an  explicit  prophecy 
of  a  necessary  and  permanent  social  situation. 

With  the  other-worldly  and  ascetic  tendency  in  the 
ancient  and  medieval  Church  was  closely  connected 
the  growing  notion  that  religious  duties  are  more  im- 
portant than  moral,  and  religious  offenses  of  greater 
heinousness  than  any  other  kind.  Prayer  and  simi- 
lar religious  exercises  came  to  be  thought  of  as  the 
Christian  man's  noblest  occupation;  and  sacrilege, 
heresy,  and  schism  as  the  worst  of  crimes.  Instead  of 
regarding  the  performance  of  one's  ordinary  human 
duties  as  the  truest  service  of  God,  the  tendency  was 
to  recognize  a  still  loftier  range  of  obligations,  and 
the  religious  man  in  the  highest  sense  was  he  who 
made  these  his  chief  concern.  The  effect  was  decid- 
edly vicious,  distracting  attention  from  the  everyday 
concerns  of  life,  and  often  making  men  worse  instead 
of  better  citizens  of  this  world.  Jesus  strenuously 
opposed  this  attitude,  which  was  widely  prevalent  in 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  257 

the  Judaism  of  his  time.  Love  for  God,  he  taught, 
is  to  be  exhibited  chiefly  in  love  for  one's  neighbors. 
But  the  old  spirit  reappeared  at  an  early  day  and  soon 
became  all  controlling.  It  was  carried  so  far  by  Au- 
gustine that  he  denied  altogether  the  virtue  of  a  mo- 
rality not  based  upon  religion.  Human  affection,  be- 
nevolence, regard  for  the  public  good — however  noble 
the  actions  to  which  such  impulses  lead — are  wholly 
evil  unless  dominated  and  controlled  by  love  for  God 
and  the  desire  to  do  his  will. 

Under  all  these  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising 
that,  while  there  was,  it  is  true,  a  great  deal  of  char- 
ity, there  was  little  of  what  we  should  call  social  in- 
terest and  effort  in  the  ancient  and  medieval  Church; 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Christians  were  as 
earnestly  endeavoring  to  follow  Christ  as  they  are  to- 
day, and  believed  as  sincerely  as  now  that  they  were 
actually  doing  his  will. 

It  was  in  his  conception  of  the  Christian  life  that 
Luther  broke  most  completely  with  traditional  Chris- 
tianity. At  almost  every  point  he  repudiated  the  com- 
mon Catholic  view.  But  those  who  came  after  him 
failed  to  understand  or  to  appreciate  his  attitude,  and 
the  old  dualism,  asceticism,  other-worldliness,  and  in- 
dividualism continued  to  prevail  within  Protestantism, 
and  gave  the  Christian  life  of  the  Protestant  churches 
a  character  essentially  identical,  except  in  details,  with 
that  of  the  Catholics. 

The  rationalists  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  made  two  important  advances.  In  the  first 
place  they  minimized  the  category  of  special  religious 


258         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

duties,  and  put  the  common  moral  virtues  into  the 
forefront,  or  emphasized  them  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
else.  It  is  true  that  many  maintained  that  the  Chris- 
tian life  includes  the  observance  of  certain  religious 
practices — obedience  to  the  so-called  positive  precepts 
of  the  gospel — but  these  were  at  most  few  and  unim- 
portant, and  the  tendency  was  to  make  less  and  less 
of  them,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  deists,  to  deny  their 
binding  character  altogether.  As  Kant  says  in  his 
Religion  Within  the  Bounds  of  Mere  Reason,  "Every- 
thing over  and  above  a  good  life  which  a  man  thinks 
he  can  do,  in  order  to  please  God,  is  mere  supersti- 
tion and  idolatry."  ^ 

In  the  second  place,  the  rationalists  commonly  made 
benevolence  the  one  and  all-embracing  virtue.  Ascet- 
icism and  other-worldliness,  reemphasized  in  contem- 
porary pietism  and  evangelicalism,  they  wholly  disap- 
proved. The  good  of  man,  not  the  glory  of  God,  is 
the  highest  end  of  life,  and  virtue  is  measured  by  its 
promotion  of  that  end.  The  influences  making  in  this 
direction  were  many.  The  awakened  sense  of  the 
dignity  and  worth  of  the  natural  man,  which  marked 
the  modern  age,  led  to  a  growing  recognition  of  his 
rights  and  an  increasing  interest  in  his  welfare.  It 
came  to  be  seen  that  not  charity  is  needed,  but  justice 
— respect  for  men  as  men  and  proper  regard  for  what 
is  due  them  as  birthright  members  of  the  human  com- 
monwealth. Reaction  against  the  harshness  of  the 
Reformed  theology,  with  its  sovereign  disregard  of 
the  rights  and  happiness  of  men,  also  counted  for 

^IV,  2,  §  2. 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  259 

much.  More  and  more  the  good  of  man  took  the 
place  of  the  glory  of  God  as  a  motive  for  human  con- 
duct. 

Again,  the  self -centered  character,  as  well  as  the 
asceticism  and  other- worldliness  of  the  traditional 
ideal,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  made  disinter- 
ested regard  for  the  good  of  others  seem  by  contrast 
alone  worthy  to  be  called  virtue.  Particularly  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  when  religious  intolerance,  big- 
otry, and  strife  were  at  their  height,  thinking  men 
were  driven  to  seek  a  common  principle  of  conduct, 
and  they  found  it  naturally  in  the  spirit  of  universal 
good  will,  which  was  so  sadly  violated  in  the  con- 
flicts of  the  sects. 

Still  further,  steady  improvement  in  the  means  of 
communication,  increasing  travel,  and  growing  com- 
merce tended  to  break  down  local  prejudice  and  race 
hatred,  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  distant  peoples,  and  to  promote  a  spirit  of 
cosmopolitanism  unmatched  since  the  days  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire.  The  influence  of  the  Stoics,  who  were 
eagerly  studied  by  the  moralists  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  counted  for  much  in  this  connection.  Their 
cosmopolitanism  and  their  emphasis  upon  common 
humanity  were  particularly  congenial  to  those  who 
felt  the  evils  of  sectarianism  and  party  spirit,  and 
the  phrase,  "the  brotherhood  of  man,"  became  one  of 
the  most  potent  catchwords  of  the  century. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  was  also  not  wholly  without 
influence.  In  their  effort  to  find  some  common  plat- 
form and  some  common  principles  of  conduct  upon 


26o         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

which  all  religious  men  and  particularly  all  Christians 
could  unite,  many  rationalists  went  back  to  Christ's 
teaching,  and  tried  to  substitute  his  simple  gospel  of 
love  for  God  and  man  for  the  elaborate  theologies 
and  rituals  of  the  sects.  As  in  the  age  of  the  renais- 
sance some  of  them  were  more,  others  less  sincere  in 
their  devotion  to  Christ,  but  in  any  case  the  appeal  to 
his  ethical  teaching  constituted  an  effective  protest 
against  the  inhumanity  of  many  of  the  principles  and 
practices  of  traditional  Christianity.  Of  interest  in 
this  connection  is  the  attitude  of  the  Evangelicals  of 
the  period.  Though  they  made  much  of  the  ascetic 
and  other-worldly  ideals  of  traditional  Christianity, 
they  yet  emphasized  also,  in  an  unusual  degree,  love 
and  service  of  one's  fellows,  and  applied  their  prin- 
ciples, often  on  a  large  scale,  in  one  or  another  form 
of  practical  philanthropy. 

Whatever  the  influences  which  contributed  to  the 
change  of  spirit  and  interest,  the  eighteenth  century 
was  the  humanitarian  century  above  all  that  had  pre- 
ceded it,  and  to  it  belongs  the  credit  of  establishing 
the  supreme  obligation  of  humanitarianism  in  the 
moral  consciousness  of  the  modern  man. 

But  there  is  more  in  the  modern  social  emphasis 
than  mere  humanitarianism.  There  is  in  it  also  the 
conviction  that  a  reconstruction  of  human  society  is 
at  once  imperative  and  possible.^  This  is  what  chiefly 
differentiates  it  from  the  philanthropy  of  other  days. 
The  eighteenth  century  witnessed,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  rapid  spread  of  humanitarianism.  It  witnessed 
*  Cf.,  Seeley's  Ecce  Homo,  chap.  XVII. 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  261 

also  the  development  and  growing  prevalence  of  the 
idea  of  progress.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  belief  in 
the  permanence  of  existing  conditions  was  in  control. 
Whether  right  or  wrong,  things  had  always  been  as 
they  are,  and  would  always  continue  so.  The  world 
was  necessarily  a  faulty  and  imperfect  place.  One 
might  well  be  grateful  that  it  was  not  worse;  one 
could  not  expect  it  to  be  better.  The  golden  age — 
the  age  of  innocence  and  happiness — lay  in  the  dis- 
tant past.  In  the  future  there  could  be  only  contin- 
ued evil  and  misery  until  the  end  came  and  the  earth 
was  no  more.  For  ideal  conditions  of  any  kind  one 
must  look  away  from  earth  to  another  and  heavenly 
realm.  Impatience  with  the  existing  state  of  things 
argued  a  lack  of  trust  in  God  and  was  but  a  form  of 
impiety. 

In  the  train  of  renaissance  and  reformation  came 
a  gradual  change  of  attitude.  The  great  transforma- 
tions that  had  taken  place  encouraged  men  to  believe 
that  everything  was  possible.  The  conviction  that  the 
world  was  growing  better,  and  that  man  had  been 
gradually  rising  from  a  state  of  ignorance  and  bar- 
barism and  might  yet  hope  to  attain  a  position  far 
higher  and  happier  than  he  had  ever  occupied,  drove 
out  the  old  notion  of  the  original  paradisiacal  state, 
followed  by  a  fall  and  subsequent  degeneration,  '^he 
literature  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  full  of  the  idea 
of  the  indefinite  perfectibility  of  man  and  society. 

The  tendency  of  this  idea  was  at  first  to  promote 
complacency,  and  to  foster  satisfaction  with  the  pres- 
ent state  of  things,  supposed  to  be  so  much  better  than 


262         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

that  of  earlier  centuries — a  complacency  and  satisfac- 
tion still  widely  dominant  in  all  parts  of  the  western 
world.  But  once  the  new  idea  gained  general  preva- 
lence it  led  to  multiplying  criticisms  of  existing  con- 
ditions and  to  a  growing  desire  to  see  them  altered. 
New  standards  began  to  be  applied,  and  new  demands 
to  be  made.  The  French  revolution  was  but  the  most 
dramatic  expression  of  the  new  spirit.  Coincident 
with  the  political  and  social  upheaval  consequent 
thereupon,  arose  the  economic  disturbances  caused  by 
the  introduction  of  machinery  into  many  forms  of 
industry  and  by  the  breaking  up  of  the  old  system 
of  production,  ^he  condition  of  the  laboring  classes 
seemed  to  be  growing  steadily  worse  at  the  very  time 
when  the  doctrine  of  human  progress  was  brilliantly 
vindicating  itself  in  the  increasing  wealth  and  com- 
fort of  the  world  at  large  and  in  thejncreasing  control 
of  man  over  the  forces  of  nature.  In  the  awakening 
consciousness  of  this  glaring  inconsistency  the  modern 
social  conscience  was  born.  The  spirit  of  humanita- 
rianism  is  in  it,  sympathy  with  those  less  fortunate 
than  oneself  and  sensitiveness  to  their  needs,  and 
there  is  in  it  also  the  beHef  in  the  possibility  of  social 
betterment.  ^When  men,  filled  with  an  enthusiasm 
for  humanity  and  vividly  conscious  of  existing  evils, 
came  to  believe  that  this  world  could  be  so  trans- 
formed that  the  poverty  and  misery  and  slavery  un- 
der which  masses  of  human  beings  groaned  and  toiled 
would  be  no  more,  philanthropy  in  the  old  sense  be- 
came a.  discredited  thing,  and  the  modern  age  of  so- 
cial service  and  reform  began. 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  26^ 

Among  the  earliest  champions  of  the  new  cause 
were  Robert  Owen  in  England  and  Henri  Saint  Simon 
and  Charles  Fourier  in  France.  So  long  as  the  efforts 
of  the  great  manufacturer  Owen  were  confined  to  im- 
proving the  conditions  under  which  his  workmen 
lived,  and  giving  them  model  homes  and  schools,  he 
was  everywhere  admired  and  applauded.  But  when 
he  began  to  denounce  the  existing  economic  system 
and  to  advocate  socialism  and  even  communism,  he 
lost  most  of  his  friends,  except  among  the  laboring 
classes,  and  became  the  most  warmly  hated  man  in 
England.  His  various  schemes  of  social  reconstruc- 
tion all  came  to  nought;^  out  his  influence  helped  to 
improve  the  status  of  the  laboring  man  and  particu- 
larly to  awaken  the  social  conscience  of  his  country- 
men. In  the  so-called  Christian  socialism  of  Frederic 
Dennison  Maurice,  Charles  Kingsley,  Thomas 
Hughes  and  others,  which  took  its  rise  in  1848  as  a 
result  of  the  failure  of  the  ill-starred  Chartist  move- 
ment, Owen's  principle  of  cooperation  was  vigorously 
emphasized  and  declared  to  be  alone  consistent  with 
the  Christian  spirit.  The  principle  was  even  put  into 
practice  in  cooperative  societies,  which  it  was  hoped 
would  solve  the  existing  difficulties  and  effect  a  steady 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  working  classes. 
They  proved  only  partially  successful,  and  were  com- 
pelled finally  to  confine  themselves  to  the  work  of  dis- 
tribution instead  of  production,  but  the  principle  of 
cooperation  which  the  early  Christian  socialists  did 
much  to  commend  to  their  countrymen  has  since  been 


264        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

applied  in  England  and  elsewhere  on  a  large  scale 
with  important  economic  results. 

Though  the  specific  movement  started  by  Maurice 
and  his  associates  lasted  but  a  short  time,  the  influ- 
ence of  their  emphasis  on  social  service  has  been  felt 
ever  since,  both  in  England  and  in  America.  'Social 
duty  and  responsibility,  of  which  they  made  so  much, 
became  a  favorite  theme  with  the  moral  and  religious 
teachers  of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  this  connection  the  influence  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
counted  for  a  great  deal.  They  were  even  more  con- 
servative than  the  early  Christian  socialists,  and  were 
utterly  hostile  to  radical  social  reform,  but  they 
preached  the  gospel  of  social  service  with  tremendous 
power  and  effectiveness,  and  the  conscience  of  multi- 
tudes was  stirred  to  the  depths. 

Most  of  the  early  apostles  of  social  reform  be- 
lieved that  the  desired  reformation  was  to  be  accom- 
plished from  above  rather  than  below.  They  were 
sure  that  the  upper  classes,  convinced  finally  of  the 
desirability  of  the  new  order  of  society  so  fervently 
preached  by  its  advocates,  would  voluntarily  relin- 
quish their  privileges  and  introduce  a  new  era  of 
social  justice  and  equal  rights."'  Particularly  they 
deprecated  class  war  and  all  efforts  on  the  part  of 
labor  to  force  the  hand  of  capital.  ^Only  by  friendly 
cooperation,  not  by  hostility  and  strife,  could  the  de- 
sired end  be  achieved,  as  Owen,  for  instance,  was 
especially  fond  of  insisting.  But  gradually  the  con- 
viction grew  in  the  minds,  both  of  social  reformers 
and  of  laborers,  that  this  was  an  unfounded  hope,  and 


THE  SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  265 

that  if  the  new  order  of  things  were  to  be  established 
it  must  be  by  the  active  effort  of  the  working  classes 
themselves  and  in  face  of  the  opposition  of  the  ruling 
classes,  ^hus  a  new  class  consciousness  began  to 
emerge  which  was  almost  wholly  lacking  when  Owen 
and  Saint  Simon  commenced  their  work.  The  devel- 
opment of  this  class  consciousness  is  the  most  striking 
social  phenomenon  of  modern  times.  No  one  did 
more  to  arouse  it  than  the  Germans,  Ferdinand  Las- 
salle  and  Karl  Marx,  the  former  the  founder  of  the 
Social  Democratic  Party  in  Germany,  the  latter  the 
father  of  international  socialism.  In  his  famous  com- 
munistic manifesto  of  1848  Marx  called  upon  the  pro- 
letariat of  all  lands  to  organize  for  the  vindication  of 
their  rights,  and  since  then  there  has  been  a  growing 
conviction  among  the  laboring  classes  of  all  western 
lands  of  the  necessity  of  making  common  cause 
against  the  capitalistic  class  in  the  struggle  for  social 
justice.  At  first  there  was  but  a  vague  idea  of  what 
was  wanted.  The  earliest  manifestations  of  the  new 
class  consciousness  were  exceedingly  inchoate  and 
chaotic.  But  gradually,  particularly  through  the  ef- 
forts of  Marx,  some  degree  of  clearness,  both  as  to 
ends  and  means,  has  been  attained,  and  the  power  of 
organized  labor  has  vastly  increased. 

Meanwhile  the  Utopian  dreams  of  earlier  social- 
ists have  been  generally  displaced  by  what  its  adher- 
ents call  scientific  socialism.  Upon  the  basis  of  an 
elaborate  study  of  history  Marx  undertook  to  demon- 
strate that  socialism  is  the  result  of  natural  economic 
forces,  and  is  the  state  of  society  to  which  western 


266         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

peoples  are  inevitably  tending.  Socialism,  according 
to  Marx,  is  not  the  mere  dream  of  humanitarian 
spirits — a  Utopia  wholly  alien  to  the  present  condition 
of  things;  it  is  simply  another  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  human  society  to  which  modern  industrialism 
and  capitalism  are  rapidly  carrying  us.  The  sociali- 
zation of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution  is 
steadily  going  on.  When  it  is  complete,  the  socialis- 
tic state  will  be  a  reality. 

The  scientific  character  of  Marx's  social  philoso- 
phy and  the  definiteness  of  his  economic  program 
have  greatly  strengthened  the  cause  of  socialism,  mul- 
tiplying its  adherents,  binding  them  more  closely  to- 
gether, and  enhancing  their  confidence  and  enthusi- 
asm. But  a  natural  result  has  been  the  tendency  to 
identify  all  socialism  with  Marxism  and  to  regard  the 
characteristics  of  the  latter  as  essential  features  of  the 
former.  This  is  seen,  for  instance,  in  the  widespread 
notion  that  socialism  is  necessarily  anti-Christian  and 
irreligious.  For  this  belief  there  is  some  justification  in 
the  history  of  socialism,  quite  apart  from  the  Marx- 
ian form  of  it,  which  was  avowedly  materialistic. 
Modern  socialists,  in  fact,  have  very  commonly  been 
opposed  to  Christianity  and  often  to  all  religion. 
Owen's  attitude  in  the  matter  is  interesting  and  sig- 
nificant. At  an  early  day  he  broke  with  Christianity, 
finding  it  bigoted,  cruel,  selfish,  and  wholly  blind  to 
the  needs  of  the  poorer  classes.  But  he  did  not  as  a 
consequence  renounce  all  religion.  On  the  contrary 
he  retained  a  belief  in  a  Supreme  Being  of  infinite 
benevolence,  whose  worship  consists  in  brotherly  love 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  267 

and  labor  for  the  poor  and  suffering,  and  he  wished 
this  religion  substituted  for  existing  Christianity  in 
the  new  social  order  which  he  hoped  to  see  founded. 
Saint  Simon's  attitude  was  similar,  but  he  called 
the  new  religion  of  social  service  Christianity,  distin- 
guishing it,  as  the  Christianity  of  Christ  and  alone 
truly  divine,  from  the  current  forms  of  Catholicism 
and  Protestantism.  In  his  last  work,  Le  Nouveati 
Christianisme,  published  in  1825,  he  attacked  both 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism  in  very  telling  fash- 
ion, and  denounced  them  as  heretical  because  they 
had  apostatized  from  Christ's  religion  of  humanity. 
"God  has  said  men  ought  to  conduct  themselves 
toward  each  other  as  brethren.  This  sublime  princi- 
ple embraces  all  there  is  of  divinity  in  the  Christian 
religion."  ^  "If  Luther's  reformation  had  been  com- 
plete, he  would  have  conceived  and  proclaimed  the 
following  doctrine;  he  would  have  said  to  the  Pope 
and  the  cardinals:  *Your  predecessors  have  suffi- 
ciently perfected  the  theory  of  Christianity;  they 
have  sufficiently  propagated  this  theory;  Europeans 
are  sufficiently  imbued  with  it;  it  is  now  the  general 
application  of  this  doctrine  which  ought  to  occupy 
you.  True  Christianity  ought  to  make  men  happy, 
not  only  in  heaven,  but  also  on  earth.  .  .  .  You 
ought  no  longer  to  confine  yourselves  to  preaching  to 
the  faithful  of  all  classes  that  the  poor  are  the  cher- 
ished children  of  God.  You  ought  to  use  frankly  and 
energetically  all  the  powers  and  all  the  means  ac- 
quired by  the  church  militant  to  ameliorate  promptly 
*  CEuvres  de  Saint-Simon  et  d'Enfantin,  Vol.  XXIII,  p.  108. 


268         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  moral  and  physical  existence  of  the  most  numer- 
ous class.  The  preliminary  and  preparatory  labors 
of  Christianity  are  finished.  You  have  a  task  to  ful- 
fill much  more  satisfying  than  that  accomplished  Idv 
your  predecessors.  This  task  consists  in  establishing: 
the  universal  and  final  Christianity.  It  consists  in 
organizing  the  whole  human  race  according  to  the 
fundamental  principle  of  divine  morality.  To  fulfill 
this  task  you  ought  to  make  this  principle  the  founda- 
tion and  the  end  of  all  social  institutions.'  "  ^  **Yes, 
I  believe  that  Christianity  is  a  divine  institution,  and 
I  am  persuaded  that  God  accords  special  protection  to 
those  who  try  to  bring  all  human  institutions  into  sub- 
jection to  the  fundamental  principle  of  this  sublime 
doctrine."  ^ 

Saint  Simon's  attitude  has  been  that  of  many  other 
social  reformers,  both  within  and  without  the  ranks 
of  his  followers.  But  most  modern  socialists  have 
apparently  been  either  hostile  or  indifferent  not  to 
Christianity  alone  but  to  all  religion.  The  reasons 
for  this  attitude  are  not  far  to  seek.  As  one  of  the 
great  institutions  of  the  existing  social  order,  the 
Christian  Church  is  not  unnaturally  regarded  with 
dislike  by  many  of  those  who  would  reconstruct  so- 
ciety altogether.  Organized  religion  is  inevitably  con- 
servative, and  cannot  do  otherwise  than  resist  revo- 
lution and  radical  change.  •/This  has  done  much  to 
promote  the  belief  on  the  part  of  the  laboring  classes, 
when  they  have  begun  to  awaken  to  class-conscious- 

*Ibid.,  p.  147  ff. 
•Ibid.,  p.  188. 


THE  SOCIAL  EMPHASIS  269 

ness,  that  the  Christian  Church  by  its  very  nature  is 
an  institution  belonging  to  the  well-to-do,  existing 
only  for  them  and  concerned  solely  with  their  inter- 
ests. Moreover,  Christianity  has  commonly  preached 
contentment  with  one's  lot,  and  has  endeavored  to 
reconcile  men  to  the  evils  of  their  earthly  existence, 
pointing  them  to  a  future  life  of  blessedness  as  the 
recompense  for  all  their  sufferings  here.  This  has 
led  many  to  regard  it  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  social 
reform  and  often  to  condemn  religion  altogether  as 
tending  necessarily  to  distract  attention  from  existing 
social  needs  or  to  foster  indifference  to  them.  Again 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  socialists  are  radicals  in 
their  attitude  toward  the  existing  order,  and  it  is  not 
unnatural  that  they  should  be  radicals  in  religion  as 
in  other  matters,  and  should  find  the  negative  tenden- 
cies in  modern  religious  life  and  thought  more  con- 
genial than  the  positive.  «>Still  more  important  is  the 
fact  that  the  economic  interests  of  the  proletariat  are 
necessarily  so  much  to  the  fore  in  the  socialistic  move- 
ment, which  has  sprung  out  of  existing  economic  con- 
ditions, that  all  other  interests  are  easily  forgotten, 
at  any  rate  for  the  time  being.  Finally  it  should  not 
be  overlooked  that  socialism  itself,  the  cause  not  of 
an  individual,  but  of  a  whole  class  of  society,  and  that 
the  most  destitute  class,  meets  those  needs  of  rever- 
ence, devotion,  self-forgetfulness,  enthusiasm,  and 
hope  to  which  religion  commonly  ministers,  and  thus 
constitutes  for  multitudes  an  adequate  substitute  for 
religion,  or  perhaps  it  might  fairly  be  said  a  new  re- 
ligion in  place  of  the  old. 


270        THE  RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

>^The  alienation  of  modern  socialists  from  the 
Church  has  done  probably  more  than  anything  else  to 
turn  the  attention  of  the  Church  to  social  questions 
and  to  enlist  its  support  for  social  reform.  Among 
social  prophets  and  teachers  there  have  always  been 
Christians  as  well  as  non-Christians,  notably  the 
Christian  socialists  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken. 
Those  within  the  Church  have  felt  the  new  wave  of 
social  enthusiasm  as  well  as  those  without.  But  the 
Church  as  an  organization  has  been  awakened  to  the 
situation  chiefly  by  the  hostility  of  which  it  has  be- 
come conscious.  It  must  meet  the  new  conditions  or 
lose  its  place  as  the  religion  of  the  people.  As  a  re- 
sult many  organizations  have  been  formed,  such  as 
the  Guild  of  St.  Matthew  and  the  Christian  Social 
Union  in  England,  the  Freunde  der  Christliche  Welt 
and  the  Christlich-sozialer  Congress  in  Germany,  and 
the  Christian  Social  Union  and  the  Brotherhood  of 
the  Kingdom  in  America,  with  the  particular  purpose 
of  showing  the  laboring  classes  that  the  Church  is  con- 
cerned for  their  welfare  and  thus  winning  back  their 
support.  Some  of  their  members  are  avowedly  and 
radically  socialistic;  others  are  quite  the  reverse,  be- 
lieving that  the  reign  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood 
within  the  framework  of  the  existing  economic  sys- 
tem is  the  great  end  to  be  aimed  at. 

In  this  connection  much  stress  has  been  laid  upon 
the  social  teaching  of  Jesus.  Professor  J.  R.  Seeley^s 
celebrated  book  on  the  ethics  of  Jesus — Ecce  Homo, 
published  in  1867 — in  which  humanitarianism  was 
claimed  to  be  the  great  burden  of  Christ's  message. 


THE  SOCIAL  EMPHASIS  27I 

proved  no  less  than  epoch-making  along  this  line.  The 
following  passage  illustrates  Seeley's  position:  "He 
might  have  left  to  all  subsequent  ages  more  instruc- 
tion, if  he  had  bestowed  less  time  upon  diminishing 
slightly  the  mass  of  evil  around  him,  and  lengthening 
by  a  span  the  short  lives  of  the  generation  in  the  midst 
of  which  he  lived.  The  whole  amount  of  good  done 
by  such  works  of  charity  could  not  be  great,  com- 
pared with  Christ's  power  of  doing  good ;  and,  if  they 
were  intended,  as  is  often  supposed,  merely  as  attes- 
tations of  his  divine  mission,  a  few  acts  of  the  kind 
would  have  served  their  purpose  as  well  as  many.  Yet 
we  may  see  that  they  were  in  fact  the  great  work  of 
his  life;  his  biography  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
words,  *he  went  about  doing  good';  his  wise  words 
were  secondary  to  his  beneficial  deeds ;  the  latter  were 
not  introductory  to  the  former,  but  the  former  grew 
occasionally,  and,  as  it  were,  accidentally  out  of  the 
latter.  The  explanation  of  this  is  that  Christ  merely 
reduced  to  practice  his  own  principle.  His  morality 
required  that  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  others 
should  not  merely  be  remembered  as  a  restraint  upon 
action,  but  should  be  made  the  principal  motive  of 
action,  and  what  he  preached  in  words  he  preached 
still  more  impressively  and  zealously  in  deeds.  He 
set  the  first  and  greatest  example  of  a  life  wholly 
governed  and  guided  by  the  passion  of  humanity."  ^ 
More  recently  the  matter  has  been  carried  still  fur- 
ther, and  it  has  been  claimed  by  many  that  Jesus  was 
a  genuine  socialist.  Not  only  was  his  interest  wholly 
^Ecce  Homo,  chapter  XVI. 


2.y2         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

with  the  poorer  classes,  but  his  great  aim  was  to  in- 
troduce a  new  state  of  society,  in  which  current  dis- 
tinctions between  employers  and  laborers  should  be 
broken  down,  and  all  enjoy  equal  economic  rights  and 
opportunities.  Many  socialists  of  avowed  anti-Chris- 
tian sentiments  have  accepted  this  interpretation  of 
Jesus'  mission  and  work,  and,  while  hating  the  Church 
and  condemning  it  in  unsparing  fashion,  speak  of 
Jesus  in  terms  of  the  greatest  respect,  and  hold  him 
up  to  the  admiration  of  their  followers  as  one  of  the 
great  social  reformers  of  the  world/ 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  interpretation  of 
Jesus'  purpose,  it  is  but  an  indication  of  the  infTuence 
which  the  modern  social  emphasis  is  having  upon 
Christian  thought.  Traditional  Christian  ideas,  in 
fact,  are  undergoing  extensive  transformation  as  a 
result  of  the  new  social  emphasis.  The  individualism 
of  evangelicalism,  with  its  primary  concern  for  the 
salvation  of  the  individual  soul,  is  widely  discredited. 
The  old  ascetic  ideal  is  everywhere  giving  way  to  the 
social.  Instead  of  holding  themselves  aloof  from  the 
world  Christians  are  throwing  themselves  into  it  and 
striving  to  reform  it.  Holiness  in  the  traditional 
sense  of  abstinence  from  sin  is  less  highly  valued  than 
it  was.  The  test  of  virtue  is  more  and  more  coming 
to  be  the  social  test.  The  virtuous  man  is  he  who 
makes  his  influence  tell  for  the  improvement  of  so- 
ciety. Personal  probity  and  uprightness,  dissociated 
from  the  active  service  of  one's  fellows,  is  frequently 

*Cf.  Weinel's  Jesus  im  neunsehnten  Jahrhundert  (1903),  p. 
130  ff. 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  273 

regarded  to-day  much  as  "mere  morality"  was  by  the 
Evangelicals.  As  virtue  had  value  to  them  only  in 
union  with  and  in  subordination  to  piety,  so  without 
the  spirit  of  service  personal  morality  seems  to  many 
a  modern  social  reformer  a  mere  empty  husk. 

I  have  been  speaking  hitherto  of  the  modern  social 
emphasis  in  its  practical  aspect  as  the  spirit  of  humani- 
tarianism,  or  the  active  effort  to  reform  society.  But 
there  is  much  more  in  it  than  this.  '"It  means,  in  fact, 
the  general  substitution  of  the  social  for  the  individ- 
ualistic point  of  view.  The  change  makes  it§elf  felt 
in  many  ways,  like  the  change  from  the  static  to  the 
dynamic  view  of  the  world.  '*nrhe  social  conception, 
indeed,  is  closely  parallel  to  the  conception  of  evolu- 
tion which  has  so  vastly  altered  our  view  of  nature 
and  life.  These  two  emphases,  the  evolutionary  and 
the  social,  are  the  most  notable  features  of  present- 
day  thought.  And  the  two  are  closely  akin.  Both  of 
them  involve  unity  and  continuity.  ^W  things  are 
vitally  connected  one  with  another.  Neither  in  na- 
ture nor  in  human  life  is  there  segregation,  separa- 
tion, sharp  division,  whether  temporal  or  spacial.  The 
unitary  view  of  the  world  is  dominant  to-day,  and  it 
finds  expression  in  the  social  emphasis  as  truly  as  in 
the  idea  of  evolution.  Man  does  not  live  alofie. 
There  are  no  isolated  individuals  complete  in  them- 
selves. Our  psychology  is  becoming  socialized.  Per- 
sonality is  recognized  as  a  social  product.  Conscious- 
ness is  pronounced  a  series  of  relations  impossible 
apart  therefrom.  Education  is  taking  account  of  all 
this,  and  is  transforming  its  methods  in  consequence; 


274         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

and  religion  is  beginning  to  do  the  same.  The  evan- 
gelical notion  of  religion  as  a  purely  personal  rela- 
tion between  God  and  the  soul,  setting  man  apart 
from  his  fellows,  is  widely  regarded  as  an  exploded 
fiction.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  isolated  human 
soul,  and  if  religion  were  for  such  a  one,  it  would 
have  no  meaning.  ^It  is  in  part  just  because  it  has 
been  thus  understood  in  the  past  that  it  seems  to  so 
many  to  have  lost  all  significance  for  our  modern  life. 
Religion  is  now  seen  to  be  a  social  growth,  like 
speech.  It  roots  itself  in  social  relationships  and  ex- 
presses itself  therein.  If  it  is  to  be  of  worth,  it  must 
make  such  relationships  easier,  not  harder,  and  must 
enrich  not  impoverish  them. 

It  is  therefore  not  an  accident  that  the  Church  is 
now  emphasized  more  than  ever  before  by  Protes- 
tants. Instead  of  being  set  over  against  that  mean- 
ingless abstraction,  the  invisible  Church — a  mere  col- 
lection of  unrelated  units — ^and  condemned  for  its 
faults  and  corruptions  in  comparison  therewith,  it  is 
interpreted  as  an  expression  of  the  necessarily  social 
origin  and  character  of  religion,  and  is  valued  ac- 
cordingly. So  long  as  it  was  regarded  as  only  an  ark 
for  the  rescue  of  individual  souls,  providing  personal 
salvation  through  the  sacraments,  the  Protestant  re- 
action against  it  was  natural.  But  re-read  in  the 
light  of  the  modern  social  emphasis,  it  is  acquiring  a 
significance  not  understood  before  either  by  Protes- 
tants or  Catholics.  In  this  connection  it  is  worth  re- 
ferring to  the  great  interest  in  church  unity  which  is 
so  notable  a  feature  of  present-day  religious  life  and 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  275 

thought.  Here,  too,  the  social  emphasis — the  em- 
phasis on  soHdarity  in  place  of  separateness — is  mak- 
ing its  influence  felt,  and,  aided  by  the  progressive 
readjustment  of  religious  values  and  the  growing 
liberalism  touching  the  traditional  faith  which  mark 
our  time,  is  profoundly  affecting  the  attitude  of  most 
of  our  ecclesiastical  bodies. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  modern  social  emphasis  is 
the  extraordinary  prominence,  in  present-day  Chris- 
tian thought  and  speech,  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
And  it  is  not  merely  that  a  traditional  phrase  has 
gained  an  unwonted  importance.  The  impressive  fact 
is  that  the  phrase  stands  for  something  very  different 
from  that  which  has  been  commonly  understood  by  it 
in  the  past.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  which  has  usually 
in  Christian  history  been  identified  with  the  heavenly 
kingdom  lying  in  another  world  beyond  the  grave,  or 
with  the  Christian  church  itself — an  institution  in  the 
world  but  not  of  it — is  now  widely  interpreted  as  the 
reign  of  the  Christian  spirit  on  this  earth,  or  the  con- 
trol of  all  human  relationships  and  institutions  by  the 
spirit  of  human  sympathy,  love  and  service. 
^^In  this  connection  we  see  also  the  intimate  rela- 
tion between  the  modern  social  emphasis  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God.  Not  an  isolated 
God,  separate  from  the  world  and  human  life,  but  a 
God  in  the  world,  one  with  it,  and  permeating  its 
every  part.  Some  have  seen  in  our  modern  social 
ideas  an  argument  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
with  its  association  of  persons  within  the  Godhead, 
or  a  reason  for  returning  to  some  form  of  poly  the- 


276         THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

ism,  that  our  human  society  may  have  its  parallel  in 
a  divine  commonwealth.  But  the  social  emphasis 
suggests  rather  the  socializing  of  Deity  by  recognizing 
God's  connection  with  men,  or  better  the  enlarging  of 
humanity  by  extending  the  boundaries  of  society  to  in- 
clude God  as  well  as  men. 

Our  estimate  of  human  character  has  also  been  so- 
cialized. We  recognize  that  both  virtue  and  vice  are 
social  products;  that  no  man  is  solely  responsible  for 
his  own  sin  any  more  than  for  his  own  goodness. 
The  notion  of  a  will  working  in  vacuo,  to  which  can 
be  accurately  meted  out  its  merit  and  demerit,  is  seen 
to  be  an  illusion.  Our  treatment  of  crime  is  begin- 
ning to  feel  the  influence  of  the  changed  view.  We 
are  now  primarily  interested  not  to  determine  moral 
responsibility,  but  to  discover  means  of  cure.  It  is 
coming  to  be  recognized  as  the  end  of  justice,  not  that 
a  criminal  shall  be  punished  as  he  deserves,  but  that 
he  shall  be  reformed;  or,  if  that  prove  impossible,  that 
society  shall  be  protected  from  him,  whether  he  be 
responsible  or  not.  That  all  this  must  involve  a  tre- 
mendous change  in  religious  ideas  goes  without  say- 
ing. Religious  and  ethical  conceptions  are  so  bound 
together  that  the  one  cannot  be  altered  without  the 
other.  The  old  notions  of  human  sin  and  divine  pun- 
ishment, of  conversion,  sanctification,  and  redemption, 
are  all  undergoing  transformation.  They  are  not 
necessarily  repudiated.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  mod- 
ern social  emphasis  rehabilitates  some  of  the  old  ideas 
which  eighteenth-century  rationalism  thought  forever 
discredited.     Notable  among  these  is  the  doctrine  of 


THE   SOCIAL   EMPHASIS  2*jy 

original  sin.  In  its  traditional  form,  of  course,  it  is 
no  longer  tenable,  but  as  an  expression  of  social 
solidarity — as  a  protest  against  the  idea  of  the  in- 
dividual as  an  isolated  unit,  creating  his  own  char- 
acter and  determining  his  own  destiny — it  is  entirely 
congenial  to  the  modern  mind. 

^But  there  is  more  in  the  social  emphasis  than  the 
mere  recognition  of  the  corporate  character  of  sin; 
there  is  in  it  also  a  recognition  of  the  social  char- 
acter of  redemption,  and  here  modern  thought  breaks 
most  completely  with  traditional  Christian  thought. 
If  sin  is  social,  virtue  is  too.  The  old  doctrine  pro- 
vided for  the  inheritance  of  sin,  but  not  for  the  in- 
heritance of  virtue.  The  latter,  it  was  held,  is  due  to 
divine  grace  which  is  imparted  separately  to  each 
individual.  All  are  sinners;  some  only  are  saved. 
There  is  oneness  in  sin,  but  not  in  salvation.  This 
artificial  distinction  is  overcome  by  the  modern  social 
way  of  looking  at  things.  There  is  unity  and  asso- 
ciation in  the  one  case  as  truly  as  in  the  other.  If  sin 
is  inherited,  virtue  is  too.  If  the  one  is  a  social 
product,  the  other  is  also.^  If  there  cannot  be  an  iso- 
lated personality,  or  an  isolated  character,  there  can- 
not be  isolated  salvation.  Nobody  can  be  saved  from 
society,  he  must  be  saved  with  it.  Part  of  the  social 
organism,  he  cannot  be  cut  off  from  it,  either  by  his 
sin  or  by  his  virtue,  without  destruction.     He  may 

^Reference  may  be  made  here  to  Horace  Bushnell's  epoch- 
making  book  on  Christian  Nurture  (1846,  1861),  which  did  per- 
haps more  than  any  other  single  agency  to  break  down  the  ex- 
treme individualism  of  the  old  Puritan  theology  of  America. 


THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

be  better  than  many  of  his  fellows,  as  he  may  be 
wiser  or  richer  than  they,  but  his  virtue  has  no  mean- 
ing any  more  than  his  wisdom  or  wealth,  except  as 
he  is  related  to  them  and  shares  their  life.  We  may 
speak  of  his  being  saved  as  he  overcomes  sin  and 
grows  in  grace  and  holiness,  but  he  is  still  a  part  of 
the  human  family,  involved  in  its  destiny,  saved  or 
lost  with  it.  The  trouble  with  the  old  theology  was 
that  it  made  earnest  with  the  social  solidarity  of  the 
natural  man,  but  denied  it  for  the  redeemed  man.  The 
trouble  with  rationalism  was  that  it  recognized  social 
solidarity  in  neither  case.  Under  the  influence  of  the 
modern  social  emphasis  we  are  coming  to  see  that  it 
holds  in  both  cases,  and  as  much  in  the  one  as  in  the 
other;  that  salvation  as  well  as  sin  is  a  social  concep- 
tion; that  no  man  can  be  saved  of  himself  or  to  him- 
self alone;  that  to  be  saved  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word  means  to  be  part  of  a  saved  race;  that  anything 
short  of  a  redeemed  humanity — of  a  human  society 
Christianized  through  and  through — is  unworthy  to 
be  the  aim  of  Christian  effort,  and  that  apart  from 
such  a  Christianized  society  there  is  no  real  and  abid- 
ing salvation  for  any  man. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY 

In  the  ancient  and  medieval  church  religion  was 
commonly  viewed  as  an  objective  thing  given  man 
from  without.  Whether  natural  or  revealed,  it  had 
its  origin  in  the  will  of  God,  and  it  came  to  men  as  a 
gift  from  above.  It  did  not  grow  up  spontaneously 
within  the  human  soul ;  it  was  brought  to  men^s  knowl- 
edge by  God  himself,  speaking  either  in  the  works 
of  nature  or  in  the  pages  of  a  book.  Religion  being 
thus  externally  conceived,  religious  authority  was  in- 
terpreted in  the  same  way.  Religion  being  God-given, 
not  man-created,  authority  has  its  seat  in  God,  not 
in  man. 

Already  in  the  second  century  of  our  era  the  ac- 
ceptance of  Christianity  by  many  adherents  of  the 
current  dualistic  philosophy  of  the  day  led  to  inter- 
pretations of  the  gospel  which  seemed  to  most  Chris- 
tians to  destroy-  altogether  its  saving  efficacy  and 
moral  power.  The  teachers  of  the  Church  conse- 
quently were  driven  to  take  the  position  that  Chris- 
tianity is  a  revelation  of  the  truth  as  well  as  of  the 
will  of  God,  and  that  sound  belief  is  as  much  a  con- 
dition  of   salvation   as   right   conduct.      The  moral 

279 


280         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

wickedness  of  unbelief  or  wrong  belief  was  insisted 
on.  God's  law,  it  was  held,  demands  purity  of  faith 
as  well  as  of  life.  This  position  has  been  shared  by 
the  greater  part  of  the  Christian  Church  even  down 
to  our  own  day.  To  believe  rightly  has  always  been 
counted  a  fundamental  Christian  duty  as  well  as  to 
live  rightly. 

In  searching  for  a  standard  by  which  to  determine 
what  is  Christian  truth  the  leaders  of  the  Church  were 
also  driven  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  to  see  in 
the  Church  itself  the  mouthpiece  of  God  and  to  recog- 
nize its  power  to  declare  infallibly  his  will  and  truth. 
This,  too,  became  a  part  of  the  common  belief  of 
Christians  and  has  ever  since  continued  such  within 
Catholicism  both  East  and  West.  The  Christian 
Church  is  regarded  by  Catholics  as  the  only  ark  of 
salvation,  outside  of  which  there  is  no  saving  grace, 
and  also  as  the  supreme  authority  upon  earth  in  the 
political  and  moral  as  well  as  in  the  religious  sphere. 
It  knows  the  will  of  God  and  can  utter  it  as  can  no 
other  institution  or  person  on  earth.  A  divine,  not 
a  human  organization,  it  must  be  listened  to  as  the 
voice  of  God  for  whom  it  speaks.  The  heretic  who 
refuses  to  believe  what  the  Church  teaches  and  the 
obstinate  offender  who  refuses  to  do  what  it  com- 
mands are  children  of  perdition,  equally  with  the 
schismatic  and  the  unbeliever  who  are  entirely  with- 
out its  saving  pale. 

In  the  ancient  and  middle  ages  the  authority  of 
the  Church  was  not  commonly  felt  as  a  burden.  On 
the  contrary,  as  the  way  of  salvation  could  be  known 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  28 1 

only  if  it  were  revealed,  the  Church  which  mediated 
it  to  men  performed  the  greatest  of  all  services.  To 
the  Church  they  owed  the  possibility  of  eternal  life 
and  to  her  authority  they  bowed  not  grudgingly  but 
gladly.  This,  at  any  rate,  was  true  so  long  as  the 
Church  was  in  sympathy  with  the  highest  ideals  and 
aspirations  of  the  age  and  voiced  its  best  thought  and 
impulse.  But  when,  as  happened  in  the  later  Middle 
Ages,  new  points  of  view,  new  ideals,  new  aspirations 
began  to  appear,  which  were  alien  to  the  traditional 
ways,  difficulty  at  once  arose.  Men  found  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church  oppressive,  not  because  she  was 
better  but  worse  than  they.  She  stood  for  ideas  which 
the  advancing  intelligence  of  the  world  had  outgrown, 
or  for  ideals  which  the  best  men  of  the  age  had  tran- 
scended. The  result  was  the  outbreak  of  a  conflict 
of  tragic  significance  to  everyone  who  found  himself 
involved  in  it.  To  accept  and  submit  when  ac- 
ceptance and  submission  do  violence  to  intellect  and 
conscience  is  exceeding  difficult,  and  yet  to  refuse  to 
do  so  is  to  imperil  one's  eternal  salvation.  Some 
made  the  venture,  but  most  continued  to  submit, 
though  often  grudgingly  and  even  sullenly. 

Luther  had  no  moral  or  intellectual  difficulties 
which  made  the  authority  of  the  Church  oppressive 
to  him.  He  was  a  devout  and  credulous  Catholic  until 
his  religious  experience  and  the  conclusions  he  drew 
from  it  brought  him  into  conflict  with  ecclesiastical 
officialdom.  When  the  conflict  came,  he  found  him- 
self in  possession  of  a  new  principle  of  assurance  that 
made  further  dependence  upon  the  ministrations  of 


28^2         THE  RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

the  Catholic  Church  unnecessary,  and  so  he  became 
the  founder  of  an  independent  form  of  Christianity. 
He  had  his  new  gospel  before  he  ever  thought  of 
questioning  the  authority  of  the  Church.  The  break 
came  originally  not  with  the  Church's  principle  of  au- 
thority but  with  its  conception  of  salvation.  His  fol- 
lowers for  the  most  part  took  the  opposite  course. 
Long  impatient  with  ecclesiastical  authority,  political, 
moral,  and  intellectual,  they  did  not  venture  to  re- 
pudiate it  until  Luther's  gospel  supplied  them  with 
a  guarantee  of  safety.  What  with  him  was  primary 
and  fundamental,  with  them  was  only  a  means  to 
another  end.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  his 
vital  interpretation  of  saving  faith  should  degenerate 
among  them  into  a  mere  empty  formula. 

When  driven  to  break  with  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  Luther  at  first  substituted  for  it  the  word  of 
God,  by  which  he  meant  the  gospel  of  God's  forgiv- 
ing love  in  Christ.  This  gave  him  all  he  needed  for 
life  and  salvation,  and  other  authority  was  quite  un- 
necessary. The  believer,  as  a  child  of  God,  possesses 
the  impulse  to  live  as  a  child  of  God  should ;  and  with- 
out the  pressure  of  any  external  law  does  instinctively 
and  spontaneously  what  God  would  have  him  do.  All 
questions  of  orthodoxy  are  unimportant.  Faith  in  the 
forgiving  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  supplies  motive 
and  guidance  adequate  for  all  the  emergencies  of 
life.  But  gradually  Luther  was  driven  by  theological 
controversy  to  substitute  the  Bible  for  the  gospel,  and 
to  put  the  word  of  God  in  the  traditional  sense  as  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  in  place  of 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  283 

the  Church  upon  which  his  Catholic  opponents  were 
standing  and  in  place  of  the  indwelling  Spirit  or  inner 
light  to  which  his  radical  adversaries  were  appealing. 
His  early  indifference  to  aught  but  the  gospel  of  God's 
forgiving  love  gave  way  in  course  of  time  to  concern 
for  many  other  things.  Divergencies  in  matters  which 
might  fairly  have  been  regarded  as  entirely  unim- 
portant loomed  large  in  his  eyes  when  they  became 
symptoms  of  another  spirit,  an  alien  set  of  ideals,  or 
a  different  practical  program  from  his  own.  The 
Bible  to  which  he  then  appealed  as  his  authority,  often 
reading  it  in  the  most  slavishly  literal  fashion,  had 
long  been  the  favorite  resort  of  all  critics  of  the  prin- 
ciples or  practices  of  the  Church,  and  his  use  of  it 
gave  it  permanent  and  supreme  authority  within 
Protestantism. 

The  change  in  the  organ  of  authority  from  Church 
to  Bible  did  not  mean  the  abandonment  of  the  medie- 
val for  the  modern  point  of  view.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  new  authority  was  just  as  external  as  the 
old,  and  submission  to  it  just  as  slavish.  The  change, 
to  be  sure,  promoted  liberty,  both  by  breaking  the 
control  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  greatest  foe  of 
freedom,  and  also  by  encouraging  the  formation  of 
mutually  hostile  sects,  based  upon  diverse  interpreta- 
tions of  the  Bible.  But  the  principle  of  authority  was 
as  medieval  in  historic  Protestantism  as  in  Catholi- 
cism, and  it  was  only  lack  of  historical  imagination 
which  for  so  long  prevented  Protestants  from  realiz- 
ing the  fact. 

Theoretically,  indeed,  the  Protestant  conception  of 


284         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

authority  was  even  more  mechanical  and  inelastic  than 
the  Catholic,  for  the  latter  at  least  had  a  living  court 
of  appeal  which  might  conceivably  take  account  of 
the  new  revelations  and  the  growing  wisdom  of  the 
ages;  while  the  former  had  a  finished  revelation  and 
a  closed  canon  which  could  never  be  subtracted  from 
or  added  to  until  the  end  of  time.  Fortunately  for 
themselves  Protestants  have  commonly  been  better 
than  their  own  principles,  and  have  so  re-read  the 
Bible  in  successive  centuries  as  to  make  it  practically 
a  new  book  and  thus  adapt  it  to  the  needs  of  one  age 
after  another.  Had  the  various  Protestant  sects  not 
seen  fit  to  record  their  interpretations  of  Biblical 
truths  in  credal  forms,  and  to  make  the  acceptance  of 
these  forms  binding  upon  their  adherents,  the  process 
of  reinterpretation  and  readaptation  might  have  gone 
on  more  freely  and  with  much  less  friction  than  it 
has.  But  there  are  limits  after  all  to  the  possibilities 
of  such  a  process,  and  there  can  be  little  question  that 
the  Protestant  doctrine  of  an  infallible  and  self-in- 
terpreting Bible  is  bound  to  disappear  from  the  minds 
of  thinking  men  long  before  the  Catholic  doctrine  of 
an  infallible  Church. 

The  first  real  break  with  the  medieval  principle  of 
religious  authority  came  with  rationalism.  The  break, 
to  be  sure,  was  very  gradual.  The  rationalists  learned 
only  slowly  to  appreciate  the  inconsistency  between 
their  principles  and  the  traditional  notion  of  authority 
as  it  existed  within  Protestantism,  and  the  old  posi- 
tion was  hesitantly  abandoned.  Most  of  the  mod- 
erate rationalists  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  285 

centuries  distinguished  between  what  they  called  nat- 
ural and  revealed  religion.  The  former  was  made  up 
of  truths  discoverable  and  demonstrable  by  human 
reason.  Natural  religion  not  having  proved  sufficient 
to  guarantee  virtue,  it  was  supplemented  by  revealed 
religion.  This,  too,  must  accord  with  reason,  in  the 
sense  that  it  must  not  be  irrational,  and  that  there 
must  be  positive  grounds,  such  as  prophecy  and  mira- 
cle, for  recognizing  it  as  a  revelation.  Once  so  recog- 
nized, it  became  a  guarantee  for  truths  which  we  could 
not  have  discovered  for  ourselves.  When  acknowl- 
edged as  revealed  truths,  the  acceptance  of  them  was 
as  necessary  to  salvation  as  the  acceptance  of  the 
truths  of  natural  religion.  They  were  part  of  the  will 
of  God,  and  their  authority  was  absolute. 

The  principle  of  religious  authority  thus  remained 
as  medieval  as  ever,  but  the  authority  itself  was  now 
rationally  tested  and  obliged  to  exhibit  its  credentials 
before  being  accepted.  This,  of  course,  was  a  step  in 
the  direction  of  a  break  with  the  old  position.  By 
the  deists  the  break  was  carried  still  further.  They 
rejected  supernatural  truth  altogether.  Only  that  was 
recognized  as  true  in  religion  and  hence  as  binding 
upon  men  which  might  be  discovered  by  the  unaided 
power  of  the  human  intellect.  Reason,  it  was  main- 
tained, is  supreme  not  simply  in  the  negative  sense  of 
having  the  power  to  test  but  in  the  positive  sense  of 
having  the  power  to  discover  all  religious  truth. 
Thus  human  reason  came  into  complete  control,  and 
religious  authority  was  rooted  in  its  authoritative  and 
law-giving  character. 


286         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

By  some  of  the  deists  reason  was  believed  to  be 
the  same  in  all  men,  and  the  truths  of  natural  reli- 
gion were  regarded  as  everywhere,  always,  and  un- 
alterably the  same.  There  are  truths  which  every 
right-minded  man  must  accept  and  according  to  which 
he  must  live.  The  principles  of  religion  and  morality 
are  universal  and  common  to  all.  This  meant  the 
retention  of  the  notion  of  absoluteness  and  infalli- 
bility in  connection  with  religious  authority,  even 
though  its  supernatural  character  was  denied. 

On  the  other  hand  there  were  those  who  recognized 
that  human  reason  may  vary  in  different  races  and 
at  different  periods  and  even  in  different  men;  that 
one  may  accept  in  good  faith  under  the  guidance  of 
one's  own  reason  facts  and  principles  which  elsewhere 
are  rejected.  The  claim  of  such  men  was  not  that  we 
are  under  obligation  to  believe  any  particular  truths 
and  doctrines,  such  as  the  existence  of  God  and  im- 
mortality, but  that  we  are  under  obligation  to  live  up 
to  the  light  we  have,  to  the  best  we  know,  to  whatever 
we  individually  think  true  and  right.  Each  man's 
reason  is  a  law  unto  himself,  not  in  the  negative  sense 
merely,  but  in  the  positive,  and  his  highest  duty  is  to 
be  true  to  it.  Here,  of  course,  the  notion  of  infalli- 
bility altogether  disappears,  and  human  reason  is  re- 
garded as  fallible  and  variable.  But  we  are,  never- 
theless, under  obligation  to  follow  it,  for  it  is  the  best 
and  surest  guide  we  have.  The  extreme  individual- 
ism of  this  position  was  genuinely  congenial  to  the 
spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

In  the  Evangelical  reaction  of  that  century  there 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  287 

was  a  return  to  external  authority  of  the  most  absolute 
and  mechanical  kind.  The  Bible  was  again  put  in  the 
forefront  as  a  supernatural  book  containing  an  in- 
fallible revelation  of  divine  truth  which  everyone  was 
bound  to  accept  if  he  would  be  saved.  That  belief 
in  the  infallibility  and  authority  of  the  Bible  sur- 
vived into  the  nineteenth  century,  and  is  still  wide- 
spread within  the  Church,  is  due  to  Evangelicalism. 
Had  it  not  brought  back  the  old  supernaturalism  at 
a  time  when  it  was  fast  disappearing,  and  made  the 
infallibility  of  the  Bible  an  essential  element  in  Chris- 
tian faith,  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  could  not 
have  survived  the  fast  spreading  rationalism  and  scep- 
ticism of  the  age. 

The  whole  question  of  religious  authority  was 
placed  upon  a  different  plane  by  Schleiermacher, 
whose  general  conception  of  religion  has  been  de- 
scribed in  an  earlier  chapter.  According  to  Schleier- 
macher, the  seat  of  religious  authority  is  the  religious 
experience.  Religion  is  rooted  in  the  feelings.  The 
religious  man  is  he  who  feels  his  oneness  with  the 
Absolute.  In  this  oneness,  and  the  experiences  to 
which  it  gives  rise,  religious  authority  resides.  Where 
our  life  roots  itself  in  the  divine,  where  the  divine 
comes  to  expression  in  the  individual  life,  there  is 
the  ultimate  basis  of  all  obligation.  No  one  is  bound 
by  traditional  principles  and  formulas,  by  external 
standards  or  rules.  As  a  religious  man  he  has  in  his 
own  religious  consciousness  the  ultimate  court  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal.  Christian  theology  there- 
fore is  not  a  system  of  metaphysics,  or  an  effort  to 


288         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

explain  the  world  of  man  and  nature,  but  a  formula- 
tion of  the  truths  given  in  the  religious  experience  of 
the  man  who  theologizes.  If  he  have  no  religious 
experience,  that  is,  if  he  have  no  consciousness  of 
God,  he  cannot  be  a  theologian.  And  if  he  have  no 
Christian  experience,  that  is,  if  he  have  no  conscious- 
ness of  sin  removed  through  Christ's  mediation  of  one- 
ness with  God,  he  cannot  be  a  Christian  theologian. 
Theology  is  a  descriptive,  not  a  speculative  science.  It 
is  concerned  simply  to  set  forth  the  contents  of  the  re- 
ligious consciousness.  Its  materials  are  given  in  ex- 
perience, just  as  much  as  the  materials  of  any  natural 
science  are  given  in  the  phenomena  of  the  physical 
world.  To  go  beyond  these  materials  and  to  have 
regard  to  other  considerations  is  as  destructive  of 
genuine  theology  as  it  would  be  of  astronomy,  or 
physics,  or  chemistry. 

In  accordance  with  this  conception  of  theology, 
Schleiermacher  refused  to  make  assertions  concerning 
objects  lying  outside  the  range  of  human  experience. 
Theology  has  to  do  with  the  phenomena  of  experience 
alone,  not  with  objective  reality  or  things  in  them- 
selves. His  doctrine  of  God  includes,  at  least  ostensi- 
bly, not  an  account  of  what  God  is  in  himself,  of  his 
nature  and  attributes  apart  from  their  manifestation, 
but  only  of  our  apprehension  of  him,  of  what  we  find 
him  to  be  in  our  own  religious  life.  The  traditional 
method  of  deducing  the  attributes  of  God  from  the 
notion  of  infinity,  and  ascribing  omnipotence,  omnis- 
cience, and  omnipresence  to  him  because  they  belong 
necessarily  to  our  idea  of  an  infinite  being,  he  utterly 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  289 

repudiated.  The  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  for  instance, 
he  treated  not  as  a  statement  of  eternal  distinctions 
within  the  Godhead  but  simply  as  an  indication  of  the 
various  ways  in  which  God  relates  himself  to  the  ex- 
perience of  Christians. 

The  experience  to  which  Schleiermacher  appealed 
was  of  course  a  very  indefinite  thing.  It  involved 
certain  feelings  and  eventuated  in  various  ideas  and 
activities,  but  it  was  impossible  to  tell  in  how  far  it 
was  the  fruit  of  an  immediate  consciousness  of  the 
divine,  and  in  how  far  it  was  due  to  the  influence  of 
mere  example  and  tradition.  The  nature  of  the  re- 
ligious experience  itself  and  still  more  the  interpre- 
tations put  upon  it  must  depend  in  large  measure  upon 
the  particular  circle  in  which  one  was  brought  up  and 
upon  the  beliefs  and  practices,  religious  and  other- 
wise, which  there  prevailed.  But  this  is  simply  to  say 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  Christian  experience 
in  the  abstract,  or  any  other  kind  of  experience  in  the 
abstract;  there  are  only  concrete  experiences.  And 
hence  Schleiermacher's  principle  was  not  fitted  to  lead 
to  an  ideal  dogmatic  which  should  formulate  the  ut- 
terances of  an  ideal  Christian  experience  independent 
of  all  local  and  temporary  limitations.  He  himself 
recognized  this  and  regarded  dogmatic  theology  and 
religious  authority  in  general  as  by  their  very  nature 
relative  and  changing. 

Schleiermacher's  conception  of  religious  authority 
was  genuinely  subjective,  and  in  this  respect  truly 
modern.  And  yet  it  was  not  exclusively  subjective, 
for  it  took  account  of  objective  reality,  both  divine 


290         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

and  human.  A  man's  religious  consciousness  is  the 
consciousness  of  oneness  with  the  divine  of  which  he 
is  a  part,  and  of  whose  infinity  he  is  a  temporal  and 
limited  manifestation.  His  experience,  therefore,  is 
valid  only  as  the  divine  enters  into  it,  a  divine  tran- 
scending the  man  himself  and  putting  eternity  and 
infinity  of  meaning  into  him.  Moreover,  there  is 
also  the  objective  social  reality,  the  experience  of 
other  religious  men.  Their  experiences  are  not  iso- 
lated and  foreign  to  his  own  and  utterly  without  sig- 
nificance to  him.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  but  ex- 
pressions of  the  larger  whole  of  which  he,  too,  is  a 
part,  and  the  same  divinity  speaks  in  them  as  in  him. 
All  are  bound  together  through  their  oneness  with 
the  infinite,  and  their  religious  experiences  are  akin 
because  they  involve  the  consciousness  of  the  same 
infinite.  It  is  impossible  for  the  religious  man  to  stand 
wholly  apart  from  other  religious  men  and  to  divorce 
himself  entirely  from  them.  While  his  own  individual 
experience  must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  the  ul- 
timate authority  for  him,  the  experience  of  others 
cannot  be  other  than  illuminative  of  his  own.  This 
is  particularly  the  case  with  Christians.  Their  con- 
sciousness of  the  divine  is  mediated  by  Christ,  and 
the  divine  is  read  in  the  light  of  his  revelation.  There 
is,  therefore,  a  oneness  about  it  even  beyond  that 
which  binds  together  the  experiences  of  all  religious 
men.  Thus  a  place  was  made  by  Schleiermacher  for 
the  social  element  in  the  sphere  of  religious  authority, 
and  one  of  the  controlling  tendencies  of  the  modern 
age  came  to  its  full  rights,  while  at  the  same  time  the 


RELIGIOUS    AUTHORITY  29 1 

fruits  of  the  eighteenth  century  development  of  the 
individual  were  conserved.  No  formula  indeed  could 
better  express  the  combination  of  the  two  elements, 
the  one  and  the  all,  than  the  formula  of  Schleier- 
macher. 

Schleiermacher's  recognition  of  the  social  element 
has  been  reinforced  in  modern  times  by  the  study  of 
the  history  and  psychology  of  religion  which  has 
made  it  abundantly  evident  that  our  beliefs  are  largely 
social  products,  and  that  the  notion  that  our  individual 
reasons  work  in  isolation  to  create  our  own  inde- 
pendent faiths  is  a  pure  fiction.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  expositions  of  this  point  of  view  is  to  be 
found  in  Balfour's  Foundations  of  Belief,  published  in 

1895.^ 

The  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  our  religious 
faiths  are  of  social  origin  does  not  necessarily  mean 
that  we  are  to  abdicate  all  responsibility  for  them  and 
submit  ourselves  blindly  to  the  dictates  of  an  external 
authority.  On  the  contrary,  we  possess  the  same 
rights  of  criticism  in  this  field  as  in  every  other;  and 
though  "Looked  at  from  the  outside  as  one  among 
the  complex  conditions  which  produce  belief,  reason 
appears  relatively  insignificant  and  ineffectual;  not 
only  appears  so,  but  must  be  so,  if  human  society  is  to 
be  made  possible";  yet  "Looked  at  from  the  inside, 
it  claims  by  an  inalienable  title  to  be  supreme.  Meas- 
ured by  its  results  it  may  be  little;  measured  by  its 
rights  it  is  everything.  There  is  no  problem  it  may 
not  investigate,  no  belief  which  it  may  not  assail,  no 
*  Compare  especially  Part  III :  Some  Causes  of  Belief. 


292         THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 

principle  which  it  may  not  test.  It  cannot,  even  by  its 
own  voluntary  act,  deprive  itself  of  universal  juris- 
diction, as,  according  to  a  once  fashionable  theory, 
primitive  man,  on  entering  the  social  state,  contracted 
himself  out  of  his  natural  rights  and  liberties.  On 
the  contrary,  though  its  claims  may  be  ignored,  they 
cannot  be  repudiated ;  and  even  those  who  shrink  from 
the  criticism  of  dogma  as  sin,  would  probably  admit 
that  they  do  so  because  it  is  an  act  forbidden  by  those 
they  are  bound  to  obey ;  do  so,  that  is  to  say,  nominally 
at  least,  for  a  reason  which,  at  any  moment,  if  it 
should  think  fit,  reason  itself  may  reverse.*'  ^  In 
other  words,  wherever  our  beliefs  have  come  from, 
and  impossible  as  it  may  be  to  judge  them  objectively 
and  without  prejudice,  no  external  authority  may  deny 
us  the  right,  if  we  choose  to  exercise  it,  to  test  them 
and  to  modify  them  as  the  needs  of  our  nature  may 
demand.  And  so  we  come  out  at  the  same  point  with 
Schleiermacher. 

What  I  have  said  of  Schleiermacher's  general  atti- 
tude in  the  matter  of  religious  authority  serves  to 
indicate  the  place  assigned  by  him  to  Bible  and  creeds. 
They  are  not  authoritative  codes,  intended  to  bind 
the  minds  and  consciences  of  men.  They  are  simply 
records  of  religious  experiences  enjoyed  in  other  days 
by  other  men,  many  of  them  great  religious  geniuses, 
and  particularly  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  greatest  of  them 
all,  and  the  one  by  whom  the  consciousness  of  God 
has  been  mediated  to  us.  The  Scriptures,  particularly 
of  the  New  Testament,  have  value  for  the  light  they 
^Foundations  of  Belief,  p.  222. 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  293 

throw  upon  what  such  men  have  felt  and  thought. 
They  thus  serve  to  guide  and  it  may  be  often  to  cor- 
rect our  reading  of  our  own  experience.  If  we  find 
the  conclusions  drawn  therefrom  entirely  out  of  line 
with  those  of  other  Christians,  we  may  well  suspect 
ourselves  and  interrogate  our  experience  anew  to  de- 
termine whether  we  have  really  interpreted  it  aright 
— a  method  which  applies  in  every  other  sphere,  as 
well  as  in  religion. 

This  naturally  opened  the  door  for  the  inclusion 
within  theology  of  a  great  many  traditional  ideas, 
simply  because  traditional.  This  was  illustrated  even 
in  Schleiermacher's  own  system,  which  in  spite  of  his 
freedom  and  independence  yet  bore  a  surprising  re- 
,  semblance  at  many  points  to  the  old  Protestant  dog- 
matics. In  fact  it  is  clear  that  he  was  often  simply 
reinterpreting  a  given  doctrine  instead  of  formulating 
afresh  the  testimony  of  his  own  experience  or  that 
of  his  Christian  brethren — a  very  common  practice 
with  liberal  theologians  of  our  own  age  as  well. 
Nevertheless,  though  thus  furnishing  ground,  particu- 
larly since  his  day,  for  the  return  of  many  outworn 
beliefs,  the  combination  of  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  marked  a  real  advance  upon  the  extreme 
individualism  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  was  in 
harmony  with  the  larger  vision  and  experience  of 
more  recent  times. 

Of  course,  where  Schleiermacher's  conception  of  re- 
ligious authority  prevails,  all  legalism  disappears.  In 
the  last  analysis  authority  is  internal  and  subjective 
and  is  rooted  in  life,  not  in  codes  or  formulas  or  rules. 


294        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

No  man  is  under  a  legal  obligation  to  accept  the  teach- 
ings of  his  own  religious  experience,  but  once  having 
recognized  its  divine  character  he  instinctively  inter- 
rogates it  and  is  guided  by  it  quite  without  the  pres- 
sure of  external  law. 

Similarly  the  traditional  evidences  to  which  re- 
sort has  commonly  been  had  in  support  of  the  author- 
ity of  Christianity  or  of  the  Bible  become  unnecessary 
and  lose  all  real  significance.  To  the  man  who  has 
a  consciousness  of  his  own  oneness  with  the  divine 
prophecy  and  miracles  are  unimportant.  The  divine 
in  other  men  and  things  is  validated  for  him  by  its 
harmony  with  his  own  consciousness.  He  depends  not 
upon  them  but  upon  himself,  and  his  ultimate  test 
of  their  divineness  must  lie  not  in  external  evidences 
of  any  kind  but  in  their  immediate  appeal  to  his  own 
religious  nature.  Coleridge  was  true  to  Schleier- 
macher's  principle  when  he  declared  in  familiar  phrase 
that  "whatever  finds  me  brings  with  it  an  irresistible 
evidence  of  its  having  proceeded  from  the  Holy 
Spirit."  1 

Still  more  important  was  the  disappearance  of  all 
the  old  claims  of  universality,  absoluteness,  and  in- 
fallibility. One's  own  experience  is  authoritative  for 
oneself  only,  not  for  others.  They  may  gain  instruc- 
tion and  inspiration  from  it,  but  more  than  that  can- 
not be  demanded  of  them.  Moreover,  experience  is 
a  growing  and  changing  thing.  As  the  years  pass 
one  is  conscious,  if  spiritually  alive,  that  one  is  en- 
tering into  new  reaches  and  penetrating  new  depths 
^Confessions  of  an  Inquiring  Spirit,  Letter  II. 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  295 

of  life.  To  postulate  finality  for  any  stage  of  one's 
experience  is  to  be  guilty  not  only  of  unpardonable 
presumption  but  of  gross  ignorance  of  the  conditions 
of  all  life.  An  external  code  might  be  final,  a  living 
experience  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  cannot  be. 

This  recognition  of  the  incompleteness  and  conse- 
quent fallibility  of  human  experience  may  consort 
with  either  of  two  attitudes  toward  the  ultimate 
ground  of  authority.  It  may  be  maintained,  as  it  is 
by  many  modem  theologians,  that  while  all  the  ex- 
isting organs  of  religious  authority — Bible,  church, 
and  reason,  whether  one's  own  or  the  community's — • 
are  fallible  in  greater  or  less  degree,  there  lies  back 
of  them  a  fixed  and  unchanging  standard  to  which 
they  all  approximate.  This  is  in  reality  the  old  ab- 
soluteness modified  under  the  compulsion  particularly 
of  Biblical  and  historical  criticism,  and  they  who  share 
it  still  crave  external  authority  for  their  religious 
faith  as  truly  as  any  traditionalist.  With  it  is  to  be 
contrasted  the  thoroughgoing  relativity  of  their  point 
of  view  who  believe  that  growth  and  change  belong 
to  the  very  essence  of  reality.  This  belief  has  been 
greatly  forwarded  by  the  spread  of  modem  evolution- 
ary ideas.  Where  they  prevail  the  tendency  is  to  think 
of  everything  as  in  the  making,  and  to  regard  the  no- 
tion of  the  absolute  in  the  sense  of  the  fixed  and  un- 
changing as  a  mere  chimera.  According  to  such  rela- 
tivists the  idea  of  an  infallible  authority  is  not  simply 
historically  unsound,  no  such  authority  having  actually 
appeared,  but  essentially  erroneous,  none  being  possi- 
ble in  the  very  nature  of  the  case.    For  when  all  is  in 


296         THE   RISE   OF    MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

flux  and  when  change  not  fixity  is  the  necessary  condi- 
tion of  existence,  the  ideals  and  principles  of  to-day 
are  bound  to  be  modified  by  the  enlarging  experience 
of  to-morrow.  No  conception  has  had  a  more  disin- 
tegrating effect  upon  traditional  notions  of  authority 
than  the  conception  of  evolution  even  where  its  results 
have  not  been  as  radical  as  those  just  indicated  and 
nothing  has  done  so  much  to  undermine  the  old  dog- 
matism once  shared  by  all  the  sects. 

But  to  return  to  Schleiermacher — quite  apart  from 
the  conception  of  evolution  and  the  question  as  to  the 
nature  of  ultimate  reality,  his  teaching  concerning  re- 
ligious authority  has  had  great  influence  in  all  parts 
of  the  Christian  world.  In  England  Coleridge  repre- 
sented the  same  position,  and  in  his  Confessions  of  an 
Inquiring  Spirit,  published  after  his  death  in  1840, 
the  principle  of  Schleiermacher,  whether  learned  from 
him  or  developed  independently,  was  applied  to  the 
Christian  Scriptures  and  the  formula  was  given  for 
their  treatment  by  English  and  American  Christians  of 
modem  sympathies. 

In  America  Emerson  and  Horace  Bushnell  have 
been  perhaps  the  most  famous  representatives  of 
Schleiermacher's  type  of  thought.  In  his  Harvard 
Divinity  School  address  of  1838,  Emerson  introduced 
it  to  the  American  theological  world;  and  through 
not  a  few  sermons,  including  for  instance  the  one  on 
the  Christian  as  a  Prophet,  Bushnell  gave  a  moderate 
form  of  it  currency  within  the  more  orthodox  wing 
of  American  Christianity  which  it  has  never  lost.  That 
God  still  reveals  himself  to  men  as  truly  as  he  ever 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  297 

did — ^this  has  become  a  commonplace  in  many  Chris- 
tian circles.  It  is  indeed  a  natural  corollary  of  the 
widespread  belief  in  divine  immanence.  To-day  there 
are  few  American  Christians  of  liberal  tendencies,  still 
fewer  German  and  English  Christians,  who  do  not 
recognize  that  religious  authority  is  a  matter  of  the 
spirit,  not  of  the  letter,  that  its  seat  is  to  be  found 
ultimately,  not  in  external  rules  or  formulas  or  codes, 
but  in  a  man's  experience,  and  that  only  that  can  bind 
his  thought  and  conscience  which  vitally  appeals  to 
him  and  meets  with  a  response  in  his  own  inner  na- 
ture. 

I  have  been  speaking  only  of  religious  authority, 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  conception  of  authority  and 
our  attitude  toward  it  have  changed  in  all  lines,  and 
the  change  in  the  religious  sphere  is  only  a  part  of 
the  larger  transformation.  Authority  has  everywhere 
ceased  to  be,  as  it  once  was,  absolute,  infallible,  des- 
potic, and  legal,  and  has  become  relative,  provisional, 
and  fallible.  Thus  in  the  political  sphere,  democracy 
has  widely  taken  the  place  of  despotism,  and  the  peo- 
ple rule  themselves,  at  least  in  theory,  instead  of  being 
ruled  by  powers  imposed  upon  them  from  above  and 
answerable  only  to  heaven.  In  the  domestic  sphere, 
too,  the  old  conception  has  generally  given  way.  The 
head  of  the  family  is  no  longer  an  absolute  ruler,  free 
to  do  as  he  pleases  with  his  children.  They  are  every- 
where recognized  as  possessing  characters  and  per- 
sonalities of  their  own,  and  the  ideal  of  the  modern 
parent  is  not  the  subjection  of  the  child's  will,  but  his 
development  into  strong  and  independent  manhood. 


298         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

The  home  has  become  the  abode  of  free  spirits  rather 
than  of  master  and  slave. 

The  same  is  true  throughout  the  whole  field  of  edu- 
cation. Not  compulsion  but  inspiration  is  the  con- 
trolling ideal ;  not  to  impart  truth  by  authority  but  to 
train  the  mind  to  discover  truth  for  itself;  not  sub- 
mission to  the  teacher's  opinion  but  independence  in 
forming  one's  own  opinions  under  the  guidance  of  an 
older  and  wiser  mind.  The  rise  of  the  elective  sys- 
tem in  our  colleges  and  universities  is  but  a  sign  of 
the  same  tendency.  Not  that  there  shall  be  no  teach- 
ers and  no  guides,  but  that  there  shall  be  liberty  in- 
stead of  authority,  and  the  student's  mind  be  disci- 
plined and  developed  by  his  free  choice  of  subjects 
with  all  the  risks  of  loss  and  waste  involved  therein. 

In  the  scientific  world,  as  well,  there  is  no  longer 
unquestioning  acceptance  of  the  dicta  of  an  external 
and  infallible  authority,  of  a  text  which  must  be 
blindly  followed.  The  appeal  to-day  is  to  observa- 
tion and  experiment,  and  it  is  recognized  that  further 
investigation  may  result  in  changes  of  opinion  in  the 
future  as  it  has  in  the  past.  And  yet,  particularly  in 
the  scientific  realm,  we  discover  that  authority  is  by 
no  means  extinct.  It  has  simply  changed  its  char- 
acter. The  average  man  of  to-day  accepts  the  con- 
clusions of  scientists  without  trying  to  test  them  for 
himself  or  to  convince  himself  of  their  soundness  by 
his  own  experiments.  He  believes  in  the  verdict  of 
the  experts  in  every  line  and  is  entirely  satisfied  to 
receive  his  knowledge  from  them.  But  this  recogni- 
tion of  their  authority  is  after  all  very  different  from 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  299 

the  old  submission  to  a  higher  power.  There  is  no 
hint  of  infallibiHty  or  of  the  supernatural  about  it, 
and  the  conclusions  are  recognized  to  be  based  on  ex- 
periment and  to  be  verifiable  thereby.  We  may  not 
be  in  a  position  to  test  them  for  ourselves,  but  unless 
they  can  be  tested  by  other  experts  and  their  sound- 
ness shown,  they  fail  to  command  our  assent.  So  long 
as  experts  disagree,  we  know  that  the  results  are  pro- 
visional only,  and  even  when  they  agree  we  are  aware 
that  new  light  may  yet  be  discovered  which  will  upset 
the  most  widely  accepted  conclusions.  The  basis  of 
faith  is  thus  in  the  last  analysis  not  submission  to  an 
external  authority,  but  belief  in  the  experimental  veri- 
fiability  of  accepted  conclusions.  This  is  the  general 
attitude  of  intelHgent  men  to-day  toward  alleged  truth 
in  every  field.  The  age  of  passive  submission  to  au- 
thority, whether  it  dictate  truth  or  conduct,  is  out- 
grown. The  world  has  come  to  maturity,  even  though 
it  still  contains  multitudes  of  the  immature. 

I  spoke  in  some  detail  of  Schleiermacher's  idea  of 
religious  authority.  Akin  to  it  and  yet  in  some  re- 
spects significantly  unlike  was  the  conception  of 
Ritschl.  According  to  him  we  find  our  religious  au- 
thority in  the  ideal  we  set  before  ourselves,  or  in  the 
purpose  to  which  we  commit  ourselves.  The  authority 
is  thus  subjective,  inhering  in  our  own  ideal  or  pur- 
pose, and  yet  it  is  also  in  a  sense  objective,  for  we 
find  it  embodied  in  Christ.  As  the  revealer  of  the 
ideal  which  we  recognize  as  supreme  and  as  the  great 
exponent  of  the  purpose  which  we  make  our  own,  he 
becomes  authoritative  to  us  in  a  sense  which  he  was 


300         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

not  to  Schleiermacher.  And  yet  even  here  the  au- 
thority is  not  absolute.  The  record  of  Christ's  life 
and  teaching  must  be  tested  and  only  that  admitted 
as  authoritative  which  truly  represents  him.  And 
still  further  Christ  himself  must  be  tested  by  himself. 
Not  his  whole  career  and  his  total  personality  have 
authority,  but  the  purpose  which  he  reveals  and  which 
we  adopt  as  our  own.  So  far  as  he  is  true  to  this,  he 
is  supreme.  But  if  it  happened  that  he  failed  at  any 
time  or  in  any  degree  to  realize  it,  his  authority  would 
be  limited.  Not  that  he  would  cease  to  have  any  au- 
thority, but  that  it  extends  no  further  than  his  own 
fulfillment  of  the  purpose  which  we  share  with  him. 
And  the  purpose  itself  to  which  we  yield  allegiance 
is  not  authoritative  because  it  is  Christ's,  or  because 
it  originates  without  us,  but  because  it  is  our  own,  the 
highest  we  know. 

There  is  a  close  kinship  between  this  conception  and 
that  of  Schleiermacher,  for  both  are  in  the  last  analy- 
sis subjective;  in  the  one  case  our  own  experience,  in 
the  other  our  own  ideal  is  final  for  us.  And  yet  there 
is  a  fundamental  difference,  for  the  one  looks  for- 
ward and  the  other  back.  Our  own  consciousness  of 
the  divine  enjoyed  by  us  in  past  and  present  constitutes 
in  the  one  case  our  final  court  of  appeal,  in  the  other 
our  appeal  is  to  an  end  outside  us,  the  kingdom  of 
God,  to  whose  realization  we  give  ourselves.  Not 
what  we  have  enjoyed,  but  what  we  hope  to  accom- 
plish, supplies  the  criterion;  and  not  that  which  ap- 
peals to  our  religious  nature,  but  that  which  forwards 
the  end  is  true  and  good  to  us.     There  is  thus  ob- 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  3OI 

jectivity  in  it,  in  a  sense  not  shared  by  Schleier- 
machet's  idea,  and  activity  as  well.  It  is  really  a 
species  of  pragmatism,  a  testing  of  religious  truths 
and  religious  values  by  their  workableness,  or  by  their 
fitness  to  promote  an  object  which  we  make  our  own, 
that  is,  the  kingdom  of  God. 

There  is  a  marked  social  element  in  this  notion  of 
religious  authority,  but  it  bears  a  very  different  char- 
acter from  the  social  element  in  Schleiermacher's  the- 
ory. That  it  is  not  individualistic,  pure  and  simple, 
is  due  not  to  the  fact  that  others  share  with  us  the 
consciousness  of  the  infinite,  but  that  the  purpose  itself 
is  social,  the  promotion  of  the  reign  of  love  and  sym- 
pathy and  service  among  men. 

Of  course  all  legalism  is  absent  from  this  concep- 
tion as  from  Schleiermacher's,  and  all  absoluteness 
and  infallibility  as  well.  The  ideal  binds  us,  not  as 
an  external  rule,  but  as  an  end  which  we  freely  make 
our  own,  and  though  the  ideal  may  remain  the  same, 
the  means  to  its  realization  must  vary  with  different 
persons  and  communities  and  with  changing  circum- 
stances and  conditions.  There  cannot  be  final  and  uni- 
versally valid  truth  or  forms  of  conduct,  so  long  as 
the  purpose  is  to  be  fulfilled  progressively  in  a  con- 
stantly developing  world. 

The  effect  of  Ritschl's  principle  has  undoubtedly 
been  to  narrow  somewhat  the  standard  of  authority. 
Not  the  total  religious  experience  is  appealed  to,  but 
the  supreme  purpose  to  which  we  give  ourselves.  And 
inasmuch  as  he  finds  this  purpose  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ,  Ritschl  makes  the  principle  of  authority  even 


302         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

more  definite  and  limited.  And  yet  it  is  quite  broad 
and  flexible  enough  for  its  purpose.  For  it  is  not  a 
test  of  truth  in  general  which  it  offers  us,  a  test  which 
we  do  not  need  and  with  which  religion  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do,  but  a  practical  criterion.  That  which 
contributes  to  the  promotion  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  Christian,  whether  it  be  truth  or  conduct ;  that  which 
hinders  it  or  is  indifferent  to  it  cannot  claim  the  name. 
It  is  clear  from  what  has  been  said  about  Schleier- 
macher  and  Ritschl  that  it  is  not  simply  the  conception 
of  religious  authority  that  has  changed  in  modern 
times,  but  the  whole  notion  of  divine  revelation,  for 
that  matter  the  whole  notion  of  religion.  Revelation 
as  conceived  by  Schleiermacher  and  Ritschl  is  not 
the  communication  of  a  system  of  truths,  and  religion 
does  not  consist  in  their  acceptance.  Revelation  is 
the  awakening  of  human  consciousness  to  the  presence 
of  the  divine,  or  the  eliciting  of  human  devotion  to  a 
divine  ideal ;  and  to  be  religious  is  simply  to  have  this 
consciousness  or  this  devotion.  But  where  religion 
and  revelation  are  thus  interpreted,  authority  is  a  mat- 
ter of  small  moment.  It  is  not  authority  we  need,  but 
inspiration;  not  a  code  or  rule  or  creed  or  system  of 
doctrines,  but  the  presence  of  God  and  the  compulsion 
of  a  divine  purpose.  Codes  and  rules  are  mechanical 
and  cramping  in  their  effects.  Spiritual  and  ethical 
maturity  is  attained  only  when  dependence  upon  them 
is  outgrown.  It  is  therefore  not  simply  that  the  idea 
of  religious  authority  has  changed,  but  that  the  need 
of  it  has  ceased.  We  are  living  in  an  age  when  com- 
munion in  religious  things  and  cooperation  in  all  good 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  3O3 

works  are  becoming  more  and  more  generally  possi- 
ble to  those  whose  religious  beliefs,  like  their  philo- 
sophical and  scientific  beliefs,  are  widely  diverse; 
when  not  creed  but  purpose  is  the  force  that  binds 
men  together  in  a  common  institution  and  a  common 
cause. 

There  have  been  few  developments  within  the 
sphere  of  religious  thought  more  important  than  this 
transformation  of  the  notion  of  religious  authority, 
and  this  change  of  attitude  toward  the  subject  on  the 
part  of  Christian  men.  It  has  made  possible  the 
growth  and  wide  acceptance  of  the  various  other  mod- 
ern ideas  of  which  I  have  spoken  in  earlier  chapters. 
If  the  old  notion  of  authority  still  prevailed,  Chris- 
tians would  still  be  obliged  to  draw  their  ideas  from 
Bible  and  tradition,  and  such  views  as  have  been 
sketched,  out  of  line  in  many  respects  as  not  a  few 
of  them  are  with  the  teachings  of  Scripture  and 
Church,  could  gain  no  standing  within  the  Christian 
community.  The  striking  fact  in  the  modern  situa- 
tion is  that  though  their  disharmony  with  the  authori- 
ties of  the  past  is  frankly  recognized,  they  are  never- 
theless widely  current  within  most  of  our  churches  and 
are  accepted  by  many  of  the  foremost  leaders  of  re- 
ligious thought  and  life. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  religious  author- 
ity it  may  be  worth  while  to  speak  a  little  more  par- 
ticularly, even  at  the  risk  of  some  repetition,  about 
the  authority  of  the  Bible  and  the  development 
through  which  it  has  passed.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
its   absolute   authority   in  all  lines  was   everywhere 


304         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

recognized,  but  the  Church  was  believed  to  be  its  in- 
fallible interpreter,  and  hence  ecclesiastical  authority 
supplemented  or  it  may  even  be  said  supplanted  Bibli- 
cal authority.  At  the  Reformation  the  Church's  claim 
to  infallibility  was  rejected,  and  the  Bible,  interpreted 
by  itself  or  by  the  Holy  Spirit  who  was  its  author, 
was  made  at  least  nominally  the  sole  authority,  and 
that  not  only  in  religion  and  ethics,  but  also  in  history, 
science,  and  politics.  Gradually,  however,  its  author- 
ity was  broken  down.  The  deists  in  denying  a  super- 
natural revelation  of  course  denied  also  an  infallible 
Bible.  Their  denial  was  sometimes  made  on  wholly 
a  priori  grounds;  sometimes  it  was  confirmed  by  one 
or  another  form  of  criticism. 

Historical  criticism  was  applied  by  such  men  as 
Woolston  and  Bolingbroke  in  England,  Voltaire  in 
France,  and  Reimarus  in  Germany.  Particularly  by 
the  last  named  the  impossibility  of  many  of  the  facts 
recorded  in  it  was  shown,  and  the  irreconcilable  in- 
consistencies  between   various   parts   of  the   record. 

By  the  deists  Tindal,  Morgan,  and  Chubb,  its  ethical 
teaching  was  made  the  chief  object  of  attack.  In  this 
connection  the  Old  Testament  suffered  the  severest 
criticism,  but  the  New  was  not  spared,  and  strictures 
were  passed  by  some  even  upon  Christ  himself,  as  for 
instance  by  Tindal,  who  found  his  principle  of  unlim- 
ited love  impracticable  and  fanatical. 

Literary  criticism,  too,  commenced  at  an  early  day, 
and  reached  large  proportions  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, though  it  became  widely  influential  only  in  the 
nineteenth.     Already  by  the  Roman  Catholics,  Valla 


RELIGIOUS    AUTHORITY  3O5 

and  Erasmus,  in  the  early  sixteenth  century,  the  pro- 
cess was  begun,  but  only  in  a  mild  way.  The  early 
Protestant  divines  as  a  rule  would  have  none  of  it. 
But  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  Catholics  Simon 
and  Le  Clerc  and  the  philosophers  Hobbes  and  Spinoza 
made  important  contributions,  and  in  the  eighteenth 
century  its  principles  were  applied  more  or  less  con- 
sistently by  Astruc  in  France,  by  Eichhorn,  Herder 
and  Ilgen  in  Germany,  and  by  Geddes  in  Scotland. 
In  the  nineteenth  century  criticism  both  literary  and 
historical  was  carried  on  with  extraordinary  vigor  by 
a  multitude  of  Biblical  scholars,  both  in  Europe  and 
America,  and  the  general  result  has  been  the  under- 
mining of  the  old-time  view  of  the  Bible  as  an  infalli- 
ble and  inerrant  book. 

Meanwhile  the  developing  physical  science  of  the 
modern  age  had  a  similar  effect.  Already  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  difficulty  was  felt  with  the  account  of 
the  creation  of  the  world  in  six  days,  with  the  story 
of  Joshua's  commanding  the  sun  to  stand  still,  and 
the  like.  The  first  impulse  of  theologians  was  to  deny 
the  new  conclusions  of  science,  because  they  contra- 
dicted holy  writ.  Luther  and  many  another  Protes- 
tant denounced  the  Copernican  astronomy  as  anti- 
Christian,  and  Galileo  and  Bruno  suffered  the  con- 
demnation of  the  Catholics  on  the  same  account. 

In  the  end,  however,  many  of  the  results  of  scien- 
tific investigation  were  too  well  established  to  admit 
of  doubt,  and  then  the  process  of  harmonization  be- 
gan. As  in  earlier  days  Biblical  students  had  har- 
monized the  Books  of  Kings  with  the  Books  of  Chron- 


306         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

icles,  or  one  Gospel  with  another,  now  they  undertook 
to  show  the  complete  agreement  of  the  Bible  with  the 
best  results  of  science.  The  six  days  of  creation  were 
interpreted  as  six  geological  periods.  The  geocentric 
statements  of  various  Biblical  authors  were  taken  as 
intentional  accommodations  to  the  popular  conceptions 
of  the  age.  Jesus*  references  to  demons  were  under- 
stood in  the  same  way,  and  with  each  new  scientific 
discovery  the  method  was  applied  afresh,  the  text 
being  tortured  to  fit  the  new  facts,  or  its  authors  being 
represented  as  modern  scientists,  consciously  adapt- 
ing themselves  to  the  ignorance  of  earlier  ages.  The 
violence  thus  done  to  the  Bible  and  the  contempt 
brought  upon  it  in  the  eyes  of  multitudes  of  intelli- 
gent men  have  been  simply  incalculable. 

Finally,  as  the  historical  spirit  began  to  spread  in 
the  late  eighteenth  century,  and  a  saner  view  of  the 
past  became  common,  theologians  awoke  to  the  fu- 
tility of  the  harmonistic  method,  and  some  of  them 
were  brave  enough  to  abandon  the  notion  of  Biblical 
infallibility  in  the  scientific  and  historical  realms  and 
to  confine  it  to  the  spheres  of  religion  and  morals. 
This  marked  a  great  step  in  the  emancipation  of  the 
Christian  world  from  the  bondage  of  an  earlier  day. 
But  it  was  long  before  the  masses  of  the  Church  were 
willing  to  take  it,  at  any  rate  in  America,  and  only 
in  our  own  time  can  the  older  view  be  said  to  have 
been  generally  abandoned. 

But  even  here  the  process  could  not  stop.  The  in- 
fallibility which  was  finally  given  up  in  other  spheres 
could  not  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  be  permanently 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  307 

maintained  in  those  of  religion  and  morals.  The  dis- 
integrating process  could  not  be  confined  to  certain 
circumscribed  areas.  Doubt  at  one  point  must  in  the 
long  run  engender  doubt  at  other  points  as  well.  There 
are  still  multitudes  who  occupy  the  halfway  position 
just  referred  to,  who  recognize  the  historical  and 
scientific  errors  of  the  Bible  while  maintaining  its  in- 
fallibility and  absolute  authority  in  religion  and  ethics ; 
but  their  number  is  steadily  decreasing.  This  final 
process  has  been  made  possible  by  the  changed  view 
of  authority  in  general  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred. So  long  as  religious  authority  was  conceived 
as  external,  legal,  and  absolute,  so  long  as  it  was  sup- 
posed necessary  to  believe  certain  truths  in  order  to 
escape  eternal  condemnation,  no  other  estimate  of  the 
Bible  than  the  old  one  was  possible.  Whatever  might 
be  true  of  its  scientific  and  historical  character,  it  must 
be  a  final  authority  at  least  in  religion  and  morals,  or 
it  must  be  abandoned  and  resort  be  had  either  to  com- 
plete scepticism  or  to  an  infallible  Church.  And  hence 
in  modern  Biblical  criticism  the  Romanists  see  one 
of  the  strongest  grounds  for  expecting  the  return  of 
multitudes  of  Protestants  to  the  Catholic  fold.  But 
when  the  notion  of  authority  itself  was  changed,  the 
old  demand  for  absoluteness  and  infallibility  disap- 
peared. And  as  the  belief  arose  originally  only  in  an- 
swer to  a  need,  it  inevitably  faded  out  when  the  need 
ceased  to  be  felt.  When  men's  religious  needs  de- 
mand infallibility,  they  will  have  it,  whether  or  no,  in 
Bible,  in  Church,  or  somewhere  else.  But  when  their 
needs  are  satisfied  without  it,  no  traditional  dogma  or 


308        THE   RISE   OF   MODERN    RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

ecclesiastical  decree  can  long  compel  them  to  accept 
it  in  these  modern  days,  when  the  whole  trend  of  de- 
velopment is  against  it,  and  when  it  means  an  im- 
passable chasm  between  their  secular  and  their  re- 
ligious thinking. 

The  process  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  was  also 
made  easier  by  the  growing  recognition  of  the  fact, 
already  insisted  upon  by  such  men  as  the  deist  Mat- 
thew Tindal  in  England,  and  by  Lessing,  Herder  and 
Schleiermacher  in  Germany,  that  the  Bible  and  Chris- 
tianity are  not  identical,  and  that  the  severest  criticism 
of  the  former  does  not  affect  the  latter.^  This  was 
the  most  important  step  in  the  emancipation  of  mod- 
em Protestants  from  the  bondage  of  external  author- 
ity, and  it  has  made  it  possible  for  them  to  look  with- 
out dismay  upon  Biblical  criticism,  and  to  engage  in 
it  themselves  without  abandoning  Christianity  or 
denying  its  divine  origin  and  saving  power.  And  as 
a  matter  of  fact  even  the  Bible  itself  has  gained,  per- 
haps, as  much  if  not  more  than  it  has  lost,  from  the 
Biblical  criticism  of  the  last  hundred  years.  For  the 
widespread  loss  of  faith  in  it  as  an  infallible  authority 
has  not  meant  its  condemnation  and  rejection.  With 
some  this  has  no  doubt  been  the  result.  But  to  multi- 
tudes it  has  become  a  far  more  interesting  and  living 
book  than  it  was.  The  history  which  it  records  is  stud- 
ied with  a  new  enthusiasm  and  understanding,  its  lit- 
erary values  are  appreciated  as  they  could  not  be 
when  it  was  interpreted  as  an  authoritative  code,  and 
the  realization  of  its  extraordinary  humanness  has 
*See  my  Protestant  Thought  Before  Kant,  p.  248. 


RELIGIOUS   AUTHORITY  309 

given  it  a  fascination  which  it  too  often  lacked  when 
it  was  supposed  to  be  the  immediate  product  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Read  as  other  books  are  read,  it  appears 
in  a  fresh  light  to  many  to  whom  it  was  formerly  a 
sealed  book,  as  to  many  others  who  found  it  uncon- 
genial and  even  repellent.  And  what  is  still  more, 
under  the  influence  of  the  growing  conception  of  his- 
torical development,  and  the  widening  range  of  spirit- 
ual sympathy  which  mark  our  age  preeminently,  men 
are  coming  more  and  more  generally  to  recognize  the 
Bible's  permanent  and  incomparable  spiritual  worth. 
Though  the  whole  modern  world  has  transcended  it 
at  many  points,  it  remains  a  unique  record  of  develop- 
ing religious  experience,  aspiration,  and  reflection,  and 
it  contains  the  highest  gift  of  God  to  man,  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Christians  have  never  found  it  more 
helpful  and  inspiring  than  now,  and  outside  the 
Church  the  characteristic  attitude  of  the  present  day 
toward  it  is  not,  as  it  once  was,  in  revolt  against  the 
extravagant  claims  everywhere  made  for  it,  contempt 
and  hatred,  but  growing  interest  and  respect.  All 
lovers  of  the  Bible  may  well  rejoice  and  take  heart 
from  the  existing  situation.  For  distress  and  discour- 
agement there  is  no  room  where  the  past  is  known  and 
to-day's  relation  to  it  comprehended. 

I  have  traced  the  rise  of  some  of  our  modern  re- 
ligious ideas,  but  many  of  them  it  has  been  impossible 
even  to  refer  to.  Enough  has  perhaps  been  said,  how- 
ever, to  show  the  general  direction  in  which  religious 
thought  has  been  moving  during  recent  generations. 


310         THE   RISE   OF   MODERN   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS 

We  cannot  be  sure  that  it  will  continue  to  move  along 
these  or  similar  lines.  Permanence  and  finality  indeed 
are  the  last  thing  we  can  anticipate  for  present  day- 
thought  upon  any  subject.  But  we  may  fairly  hope 
that  in  the  future  as  in  the  past  there  will  be  growing 
adaptation  between  Christianity  and  the  world  in 
which  it  lives.  The  Church  has  commonly  been  slow 
to  change — a  great  institution  necessarily  is.  But  in 
the  end  it  has  always  adjusted  itself  to  the  ethical  and 
intellectual  tendencies  of  the  age.  Had  it  not  it  would 
long  ago  have  perished  from  the  earth.  That  Chris- 
tianity continues  to  reveal  this  adaptability  to  the  de- 
veloping mind  of  man  is  a  proof  that  it  is  alive,  not 
dead,  and  is  the  best  guarantee  of  its  permanent  in- 
fluence and  power. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  i8i 

Adam,  fall  of,  3,  19 

Agnosticism,   43,    144  ff. 

Ambrose,  25 

Anselm,  47,  50 

Antipodes,  27 

Aristotle,  27 

Arminianism,  19,  244 

Arnobius,  25 

Arnold,  Matthew,  74,  141  ff. 

Asceticism,  24 

Astruc,  305 

Atheism,  23,  43 

Augustine,  25,  176,  255,  257 


B 


Bacon,  Francis,  12,  31,  34 

Bacon,  Roger,  31 

Balfour,  291  ff. 

Basil,  25 

Bayle,  156 

Berkeley,  231 

Bible,  authority  of,  i,  3,  30,  Z2>y 

107,  282  ff.,  287,  292  ff.,  303  ff. ; 

world  view  of,  34 
Biblical  criticism,  304  ff.,  308 
Bolingbroke,  304 
Bonnet,  168 
Bosanquet,  68,  216^ 
Bridgewater  Treatises,  42 
Brown,  William  Adams,  163 
Browning,  Mrs.,  205 
Browning,  Robert,  227 


Bruno,  Giordano,  188,  305 

Buffon,  168 

Bushnell,  Horace,  214,  277,  296. 

Butler,  39,  156 

Byron,  in 


Caldecott,  136 
Calvin,  242  ff.,  245  ff.,  251. 
Carlyle,  197,  264 
Chalcedon,  Council  of,  207 
Chambers,   Robert,   170,  200  ff. 
Chartist  movement,  263 
Chateaubriand,  in 
Christ,  authority  of,  300*;  Per- 
son and   work  of,    i,  3,  99, 

206  ff.,  234  ff. 
Christian  life,  257  ff. 
Christian  socialism,  263,  270 
Church,   authority  of,   i,  283; 

Hegel's  doctrine  of,  99;  the 

invisible,   274 
Church,  unity  of,  103,  274 
Chubb,  Thomas,  304 
Clarke,  Samuel,  38 
Coleridge,  in,  124 ff.,  196,  212, 

294  ff. 
Comte,    146  ff. 
Copernican      astronomy,      2Ty 

321 
Copernicus,  188,  305 
Cosmological  proof,  54 
Creation,      doctrine      of,      28, 

228  ff.,  232 
Creeds,  authority  of,  292  ff. 
Cudworth,  34 


3" 


312 


INDEX 


Darwin,  Charles,  33,  42,  170  ff. 

Darwin,   Erasmus,   168 

Deists,  20  ff.,  28s  ff. 

Deity  of  Christ,  208  ff.,  235 

Demaillet,   168 

Democracy,  297 

Descartes,     14,    31,    34,    45  ff., 

166  ff. 
Design,    argument    from,    42, 

52  ff. 
DeWette,  121,  123  ff. 
Diderot,  iii 
Drummond,  Henry,  171,  200  ff. 


Edwards,  Jonathan,  248 

Eichhorn,  305 

Emerson,  125,  197,  296 

Empiricism,   14,  54 

Erasmus,  305 

Eternal    life,    Schleiermacher's 

notion   of,    162  ff.,   Ritschl's, 

163 
Evangelicalism,      105  ff.,      258, 

260,  273,  286  ff. 
Evolution,    166  ff.,    199  ff.,   224, 

273,  295  ff. 
Experience,       authority       of, 

287  ff. 


Fall,  doctrine  of,  19,  106,  182 
Fatherhood  of  God,  242,  246  ff. 
Fechner,   197  ff. 
Feuerbach,  67,  70,  102 
Fichte,     63  f(.,     70,     82  ff.,     90, 

134  ff.,  140  ff.,  193,  226  ff. 
Fiske,  John,  217 
Fourier,  263 

Freedom,   postulate  of,   129  ff. 
Fries,  121  ff. 


Galileo,  32  ff.,  37,  305 
Geddes,  Alexander,  305 
God,  character  of,  240 ff.;  per- 
sonality of,  213  ff.,  223 ;  pos- 
tulate    of,     129  ff.,     226  ff.; 
proofs  of,  46  ff.,  soff.,  225 
Goethe,  68,  iii,  113,  169 


H 


Hamann,  112  ff. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  154 

Hare,  Julius,  126 

Hegel,    82,    89  ff.,    143,    169  ff., 

193,  211,  231,  234,  250,  252 
Herder,    113,   173  ff.,    191,   213, 

218,  305,  308 
Hobbes,  14,  305 
Ho  ff  ding,  69 
Howison,  230  ff. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  263 
Hugo,  Victor,  iii 
Humanitarianism,  14,  246,  260, 

262,  273 
Hume,   54  ff.,   104  ff.,   112,   144, 

156,  180,  225 
Hutton,  James,  169 
Huxley,  146 


Idealism,    post- Kantian,    81  ff., 

102 
Ilgen,  30s 

Illingworth,  214,  216 
Immanence     of     God,     180  ff., 

187  ff.,  223,  227,  274,  297 
Immortality,    21  ff.,     129,    131, 

162  ff.,  205 
Incarnation,  idea  of  in  Hegel, 

98  ff. ;  in  Strauss,  loi 
Ingersoll  Lectures,  163 
Isidore  of  Seville,  25 


INDEX 


313 


J 


Jacobi,  82,  100,  ii4ff.,  142,  I55» 

157,  190  ff. 
James,  William,  136,  229  ff. 
Joule,  James  P.,  169 
Justin  Martyr,  241 


K 


Kant,  41,  51,  55ff-,^ff.,  (>7, 
70,  81  ff.,  87,  114,  119,  128  ff., 
130,  136,  142  ff.,  i58ff.,— r62, 
169,  224  ff.,  249  ff.,  252,  258 

Kepler,  Z2,  34 

Kingdom  of  God,  133,  141, 
255,  274,  302 

Kingsley,  Charles,  263 

Krause,  K.  C.  R,  210 


Lamarck,  168,  170 

Lamartine,  iii 

Laplace,  41,  169 

Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  265 

Law,  William,  156 

LeClerc,  305 

Leibnitz,  39,  50  ff.,  167,  191 

Lessing,  172,  189  ff.,  308 

Locke,  John,  14,  38,  225 

Lotze,  160,  214 

Love  of  God,  246  ff. 

Luther,    16,    242  ff.,    257,    267, 

281  ff.,  305 
Lutheranism,  S 
Lyell,  Charles,  169 


M 


Magellan,  32 
Mansel,  154  ff. 
Marcion,  229 


Martineau,  James,  127,  219 
Marx,  Karl,  265  ff. 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  263  ff. 
Mendelssohn,  Moses,  190 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  148  ff. 
Miracles,  ZT  ^' 
Moberley,  W.  H.,  215 
Moore,  Aubrey,  181,  201 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  12 
Morgan,  Thomas,  304 


N 


Naturalism,  22'j 
Nebular  hypothesis,  41 
Newman,  F.  W.,  2,  67,  126 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  34  ff.,  z7 
Nominalism,  16,  45,  187 
Novalis,  III 

O 

Occam,  16,  104 
Omnipresence,  202 
Ontological  proof,  47,  50 
Original  sin,  182 
Owen,  Robert,  263  ff. 
Oxford  movement,  194 


Paley,  38  ff.,  42,  225 

Panentheism,  210 

Pantheism,  193,  202,  211  ff. 

Parker,  Theodore,  211 

Pascal,  156 

Personality  of  God,  213  ff.,  223 

Pietism,  5  ff.,  22,  105,  258 

Pietists,  66 

Plato,  27 

Platonism,  24 

Postulation,  method  of,  132  ff., 

136  ff.,  229 
Pragmatism,  136  ff.,  301 


314 


INDEX 


Progress,  idea  of,  12,  172 
Priestley,  212 

Psychology  of  religion,  70,  72 
Ptolemaic  astronomy,  27 
Pythagoreans,  2^ 


Rashdall,    Hastings,    211,    214, 

224 
Rationalism,      16,     19  ff.,      67, 

105  ff.,  114,  244,  251,  284,  287 
Rationalism,  philosophical,   14, 

47,  55,  118 
Rauwenhoff,  135 
Reason      and     understanding, 

1 19  ff.,  124  ff. 
Redemption,   3,    19  ff.,   32,    106 
Regeneration,  6,  206 
Reimarus,  304 
Relativity,  185,  295 
Religion,    21,    61  ff.,    279,    302; 

psychology  of,   70,    72;    his- 
tory of,  yd. 
Renaissance,  11,  188,  261 
Revelation,  3,  21,  204  ff.,  302 
Rewards      and      punishments, 

21  ff,  62,  74 
Rhadamanthus,  240 
Ritschl,      74,      139  ff.,      159  ff., 

226  ff.,  234  ff.,  299  ff. 
Robinet,  168 

Romanticism,  67,  iii,  193  ff. 
Romanticists,  66 
Rousseau,  iioff.,  189 
Royce,  218 
Ruskin,  (fj^  264 


Sacraments,  3,  19,  242 

Saint- Simon,   Henri,  263,  265, 

267  ff. 
Sanctification,  6 


Scepticism,  23,  84,  227,  287 
Schelling,    64,    82,    88  ff.,    100, 

169  ff.,  193,  199 
Schiller,  64 

Schlegel,  Friedrich,  in 
Schlegel,  Wilhelm,  in 
Schleiermacher,     65  ff.,     70  ff., 

80,  95,   157  ff.,  162  ff.,   192  ff., 

203  ff.,  218,  234  ff.,  250,  252, 

287  ff.,  299  ff.,  308 
Schopenhauer,  102 
Schurman,  J.  G.,  217 
Science  and  religion,  S3  ff- 
Seeley,  J.  R.,  67,  260,  270  ff. 
Shelley,  in 
Simon,  Richard,  305 
Socialism,  265  ff. 
Socinianism,   19  ff.,  244 
Sovereignty  of  God,  242,  248 
Speculation,  81  ff. 
Spencer,    Herbert,    67,    148  ff., 

169  ff. 
Spener,  5  ff. 
Spinoza,  34,  48  ff.,  82,  88,  115, 

190,  198,  305 
Stoics,  259 
Strauss,  67,  loi  ff. 
Streeter,  B.  H.,  223 
Sturt,   Henry,  211 
Supernatural,  the,  18,  36,  226 
Supernaturalism,  287,  299 
Swete,  H.  B.,  108 
Symbolism,  24 


Teleological  proof,  54 
Teleology,  228 
Tennyson,    197 
Thomas  Aquinas,  27 
Tieck,  III 
Tillotson,  38,  248 
Tindal,  Matthew,  248,  304,  308 
Toland,   145 

Transcendence  of  God,  180  ff., 
189,  210,  213  ff.,  222 


INDEX 


315 


Transcendentalists     of     N  e  w 

England,  125 
Trinity,  doctrine  of,  3,  97,  274, 

289 
Truth,  the  double,  17 


U 


Unitarianism,  207,  244 


Valla,  Lorenzo,  304 
Value  judgment,  159 
Values,  realm  of,  142,  162 
Vigny,  Albert  de,  iii 


Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  31 
Voltaire,  iii,  304 

W 

Wallace,  Alfred,  170 
Weinel,  Heinrich,  272 
Wesley,  John,  106  ff.,  117,  189 
Westcott,  B.  R,  127 
Whiton,  J.  M.,  210 
Wolff,     Ferdinand     Christian, 

siff.,  167 

Woolston,  Thomas,  304 
Wordsworth,  68,  iii,  197 


Zwingli,  243 


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Christianity  of  Oriental  type.  His  method  of  baptizing  converts 
from  heathenism,  thousands  at  a  time,  on  credible  profession  of 
faith  in  Christ,  has  profoundly  affected  the  methods  of  Christian- 
ity in  India  and  other  lands.  In  this  book  we  have  a  graphic 
description  of  his  ideas  and  methods  and  experiences." —  E.  F. 
Merriam,  D.D.,  Managing  Editor  of  the  Watchman-Examiner, 

"  As  a  life-like  delineation  or  revelation  of  character,  the  book 
seems  to  me  almost  beyond  criticism.  We  see  Dr.  Clough  as 
he  was,  with  all  the  complexity  of  his  extraordinary  character." 
—  Thomas  S.  Barbour,  D.D.,  Foreign  Secretary,  American 
Baptist  Foreign  Mission  Society,  1 899-191 2. 


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This  is  a  study  of  the  life  of  Christ  written  not  for  theologians,  but 
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Jesus  and  his  career  and  the  conditions  of  his  time  are  related  with  a 
simplicity  that  will  commend  the  book  to  those  who  find  so  much  of 
religious  writing  vague  and  unsatisfactory.  Dr.  Anderson  has  not 
sought  to  solve  disputed  questions,  but  rather  to  present  in  %  clear 
light  the  broad  and  generally  accepted  facts  of  the  Saviour's  lite,  and 
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guished clergyman  and  writer  seeks  to  impress  upon  his  readers  the 
necessity  of  getting  possession  of  themselves.  Learning  how  to  see, 
how  to  think,  how  to  speak,  how  to  hear,  how  to  give,  how  to  serve, 
how  to  win  and  how  to  wait  —  these  are  the  author's  themes.  The 
chapters  are  interesting  because  of  the  happy  fashion  in  which  Dr. 
Gladden  clothes  his  thoughts  ;  they  are  valuable  in  that  they  contain 
the  wise  counsel  of  a  mature  mind  in  which  are  arranged  and  stored 
the  products  of  a  long  experience.  The  work  is  especially  suited  to 
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them  to  obtain  and  maintain  a  proper  adjustment  toward  life.  It  will, 
however,  be  read  with  no  less  profit  by  all  whose  minds  are  open,  who 
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